How We Nurture Destruction
by Jessica Marsh
Summary: Mouse, a girl who spent her whole life locked in an underground hole, is opened up to an entirely new world when she chases her father around the Capital Wasteland, and comes across Abri and Joanie, two very different people with very different pasts.
1. Prologue

"Mouse, look at him while he's speaking to you. It's rude not to."

Timidly, she lifted her eyes. Before her stood the Overseer, smiling down at her with a little mechanical ring in his hands. "S-Sorry, sir," she stammered, and quickly looked back at her feet.

Laughing, the man straightened and held out the object toward her. She ignored it, and a hand reached over her shoulder and plucked it up. "She hasn't changed much in ten years, James. Still as shy as ever. Give this to her?"

"Of course, sir. Thank you very much."

The Overseer smiled again, turned, and walked across the room to speak with some other adult. Her father's hand rested on her shoulder, and she turned and glanced up at him.

"I'm sorry, Dad," she whispered. "I know I shouldn't be so rude to the Overseer."

"Nonsense, Mouse; he knows how you are." Her father smiled warmly and crouched so he was at her level. "Are you ready for your Pip-Boy now?"

Mouse hesitated, eyeing the metal and electronic contraption her father held. Everybody had one. For some reason, she really didn't want one. "I-I guess so…"

Her father chuckled. "I know you want to say no. Sorry, Mouse, everyone has to have one." Gently, he pulled her arm away from her chest and fitted the device snugly around her forearm. She watched in silence as he locked it together and pressed a button. Instantly, green images and numbers lit up, and the thing was active.

"There you go. Your very own." The corner of his mouth tilted upward, and he quickly ruffled her fine blonde hair. Mouse stifled a giggle and pulled away. "You're allowed to laugh," he jokingly admonished. "It's your birthday. Tenth birthdays don't come around again. Trust me, I know."

Mouse smiled.

"Go talk to your friends," her father encouraged. "Be young."

Obediently, she turned away. There was nobody here she even wanted to talk to, except maybe Amata, and even she was the Overseer's daughter. Butch and his cronies were huddled on a booth together in the middle of the room; adults were scattered about. There were, what, five, six kids there total?

With a sigh, Mouse trudged silently toward Amata, who was scowling at the mess of a cake on the counter. "Hi, Amata," she greeted softly.

Amata turned and beamed. "Happy birthday, Mouse! This is so exciting! You finally get your own Pip-Boy!"

Mouse grimaced at the whirring, beeping _thing _clamped on her forearm. "Oh, lucky me. Does this come off easily?"

"I don't know; I've never tried. I'm scared to, since my dad's the Overseer." Amata's eyes suddenly widened. "Oh, jeez, Butch's coming. Duck, Mouse."

She tried to turn to see what Butch would do, but she was shoved forward into Amata before she could even try.

"Hey, _Mouse_," a boy's voice sneered. "Think you're all big and tough now that you're _ten? _Big freaking deal." Butch DeLoria came around her and scowled. Grabbing up her wrist and making her whimper quietly, he laughed and held her arm toward his friends. "Look at her Pip-Boy. It's older than this Vault."

The boys around them burst into loud laughter, and two of them punched Mouse in the arm, hard enough to make her stumble into Butch. He pushed her back into one of his friends, and her heel caught on a toe. With a squawk, she toppled to the floor and landed heavily on her bottom.

"Go away, Butch," Amata said courageously.

"Yeah? And what're you gonna do about it? Call your daddy?"

Mouse peered up at Butch as he scowled down at her. "G-Go away, B-Butch," she murmured. "W-We didn't do anything…"

The boy started to open his mouth, but a sharp call from Officer Gomez made him quickly shut it. Glowering at Mouse, he pointed one grubby finger at her and muttered, "I'll get you for this, Mouse."

"Butch!"

He rolled his eyes and started toward the door of the cafeteria. Mouse's eyes followed him, and her shallow breathing calmed as he left the room with his cronies behind him.

Amata plopped down beside her and glared at the door as Butch left. "Just ignore him, Mouse. He's just jealous."

Shutting her eyes and rubbing her face in her palms, Mouse whispered, "Of what? He has a mother still." But it was too soft for Amata to hear.

"He's just a bully anyways. Hey, are you listening to me? Mouse!"

—

Her eyes snapped open. A grimy aluminum panel was above her, serving as a ceiling. Shaking gently, she pushed the grubby, prickly blankets off her body and wandered to the window. A glorious orange sunrise silhouetted the city of Megaton in black; the horizon shimmered with heat and radiation still floating in the air. Bronze, cinnamon, gold, even some smudgy violent at the bottom of the sky; it was the second sunrise she had ever seen in her life, and like the first, it was unforgettable. Nothing in her old home could have caught the awe of it. It would be a beautiful day.

A sigh as she turned and pulled on her jumpsuit; the images of her dream were still burned in front of her eyes, making it impossible for her to enjoy anything about the day. The torture of her childhood seemed so real as she slept; it was almost as if she was reliving it once more.

She shook her head. The jumpsuit was soft and worn, after so many years in her possession. Same with her boots; the ancient BB gun dangling from her hip. She dipped her hands into her pockets and her fingers brushed an aging piece of paper with frayed edges, folded up beside a compact audio recorder. A poem and her father's voice; two things she kept with her at all times.

Slowly, she zipped up the front of her jumpsuit. Well, this was it. She might as well go downstairs to the tavern and ask her questions, let her voice be heard.

Speak for the first time since she arrived in Megaton three days prior—since her escape from Vault 101.


	2. Advertise with neon sign

Mouse squeaked as someone slapped her bottom, and she quickly scurried toward a chair. Amidst cheerful laughter, she hurriedly sat down and hunched over, covering her face with her hands. What a mortifying way to start her day.

"Ooh, did you see her run? Found yourself an excitable one, eh?"

"And that cute little noise she made? I wonder if she—"

"Hey, ignore them." Rather than rowdy male voices, this one was a soft woman's. Mouse cautiously uncovered her face and found a young blonde woman seated near her eyeing her nervously.

Mouse nodded jerkily, but found nothing to say.

"Quiet, aren't you?" The woman reached across a table between them and held out her hand. "I'm Lucy. Lucy West."

A brick of dread fell into the pit of Mouse's stomach. She had to say her _name_. "I-I'm… M-Mouse."

Lucy's eyebrows instantly shot up into her hairline. "Mouse?" she repeated, disbelieving. "That's an odd name."

She cringed; she knew this would happen. "M-My name's Amanda… everyone c-calls me M-Mouse because…" She managed to smile, though she knew it had to look forced and awkward. "I'm so… sh-shy."

"Oh, okay." Lucy leaned back in her creaky wooden chair and gave Mouse a thoughtful look. "So where are you from? What brings you all the way out here to Megaton?"

On the way into Megaton, everybody she passed stared at the giant numbers stamped onto her back: 101. People weren't stupid. The town was very close to the ancient Vault. Everybody knew, and everybody gave her confused and dirty looks as she wandered across Megaton.

"I-I'm from… V-Vault One-o-oh-One," she stammered under her breath. Her hands were twisted together in her lap, sticky from sweat; the heat of the day made the saloon scorching, and she was actually speaking to a stranger. Someone who she hadn't grown up with and known closely her entire life. An outsider. A person of the Wasteland.

"Vault One-oh-One?" Lucy repeated, rather loudly. A ghoul behind the counter growled softly, and a few men seated nearby glanced her way. Lucy leaned forward on the table; her eyes glistened in interest. "Vault One-oh-One? How'd you leave? I thought people weren't supposed to be able to get out of that vault."

"Um, that's a-actually the whole r-reason I'm in M-Megaton. M-My father—"

"Did you hear that? This little girl's from Vault _One-oh-One_." A grubby man, drunken already first thing in the morning, slithered up to the table and slapped a heavy hand on Mouse's shoulder. "Never seen the light of day before, girl? No wonder you're so pale. You pale everywhere, vault rat?"

"Hey," a raspy voice called from across the room. The man stopped his attempts to grope through Mouse's jumpsuit, and he glanced back over his shoulder at the sound. The ghoul behind the counter had stopped beating the radio and was now glowering at Mouse's assailant. She had nearly screamed the first time she had seen him three days before, and the local prostitute quietly explained to her what he was. "Leave her alone."

"Don't you talk to _me _like that, _ghoul_. I'll get Moriarty."

"Yeah, he'll beat your rotten ass," another man hooted. Laughter arose and filled the tavern. "Maybe make your looks a little better."

Mouse watched in silent horror as the cruelty switched from her to the ghoul. He simply soaked their insults; standing there impassively as they shouted their worst at him. And that was a lot, considering what he was.

A sudden image of Butch DeLoria and his Tunnel Snakes continually harassing Mouse and Amata flashed before her eyes. They always took it, just like the ghoul was—until that one day when something fragile in Mouse snapped and she pounced on Butch in the hallway. He had to be sent to her father, the doctor, and she was sent to the Overseer. But it had been worth it.

"S-Stop," she said, but she was too quiet to be heard. The men continued snarling insults at the ghoul; the rest of the saloon merely watched. Mouse shakily got to her feet and rubbed her damp palms on the sides of her jumpsuit. "S-S-_Stop_." This time, her voice was actually audible. One of the men glanced her way. He nudged his neighbour with his elbow, and both of them glowered at her.

The majority of them continued to harass the ghoul.

Anger filled her, but she could do nothing about it. Terror of speaking in such a public place wracked her being, overpowering the fury and sympathy she felt for the ghoul's situation.

All she could do—all she did do—was stare pitifully at the rotted man, wishing desperately she could help.

A bell dinged somewhere as the door to the saloon opened. Mouse glanced toward it and saw nothing interesting; some newcomer, a man she had never seen before, probably here to join the fun.

However, as soon as some of the men harassing the ghoul turned and noticed the man, they instantly hushed themselves and their companions. Soon, the entire saloon was dead quiet.

The hair stood up on the back of Mouse's neck, hot and prickly with sweat.

This man did nothing, and yet everyone stopped.

Behind the fuzz and static of the broken radio, Mouse heard the ghoul make a raspy noise that could have been a laugh. His dark eyes lit up, and his cracked mouth pulled into a smile. "Hey, Abri," he croaked.

The man sauntered up to the counter and leaned forward to see the ghoul. "Hey, Gob. First things first: any idea if Moira—"

"I talked to her yesterday, when she stopped in here," the ghoul interrupted. Mouse grimaced; everybody treated him badly. Would this man overreact since he was interrupted by a ghoul? "Some crazy travellers showed up the other day, bought a bunch of stuff. She's got caps."

Bottle caps: the currency of the Capital Wasteland, and something Mouse had none of. Nova, the prostitute, helped pay for Mouse's room herself.

The man turned, and Mouse saw him grin. "Perfect. I'll have to pay her a visit." He shook a ratty old backpack that was slung over his shoulder, and it sounded like a big pile of junk rattled around inside.

Gob's eyes widened. "Where'd you find all that?"

"Minefield. Picked the place clean. Plus, Moira wanted a mine, so I figured I'd get her one while I was in the area." He swiped a hand back over his black hair to wipe it off his forehead, which gleamed with sweat. "Everybody told me the place was empty."

Another laugh as the ghoul turned down the volume on the radio, thus reducing the irritating static. "Lemme guess: you were lied to."

"All over the place, Gob. Some guy tried to take out my head when I was getting Moira's mine. Thank God he was the only one there."

"Is, uh…?" Gob gestured to the man's back. Behind the backpack was a gigantic, sleek old gun. Mouse had never seen one before—but then, she had only seen ten mills and BB guns.

The man, Abri, removed the backpack and dropped it to the floor. It clattered loudly, and whispers in the corner immediately shut up at the sound. He pulled off the gun and held it up for Gob to see. "It's his. It's not in great condition, but it'll take me about fifteen minutes to fix up. I was going to do it on the way back, but I thought, hey, who uses a sniper rifle to kill mole rats? What a waste of bullets."

Mouse huddled farther back on her chair, and noticed she wasn't the only one doing so. This man was intimidating, and all he was doing was making friendly conversation with the local ghoul.

Though, maybe that was why he was so strange. Nobody else was nice to Gob.

No, it was more than that, she decided upon further scrutiny. His thin body was swathed in strange leather garments, and dark stubble dotted his sun-browned face. Heavy black glasses perched on his nose, grimy and dirty like the rest of him. He was just… odd.

"Yeah, no kidding." Gob reached beneath the counter and pulled up a cup. Dragging a cloth from his shoulder, he began to distractedly clean. "So that's it? Only Minefield?"

Abri waved a hand and leaned his elbows on the counter. "Well, and other places, but they don't matter. So… your turn."

Mouse saw Gob's eyes flick her way, and she sighed softly, curling her legs up to her chest. Of course, they _would _start talking about the weird little girl from the vault. It wasn't ever going to change; back home, she had been the doctor's daughter, the girl with no mother, the creepy shy one. She was used to it, but…

Seeing Gob and Abri, two complete strangers, lean in close to each other and begin whispering, it felt as though her throat was closing up and everything was freezing. All they knew was where she came from. It shouldn't take them this long to discuss it.

Abri broke the quiet of their hushed conversation by interjecting, "Really, now?" but Gob quickly held up a finger, and Abri clamped his mouth shut. They continued to speak in low voices.

Mouse frowned and pulled her gaze away from the two. As she looked away, she caught Lucy West looking at her with a smile.

"You confused?" she asked kindly.

Mouse nodded.

"Okay, well." Lucy kept her voice down. It seemed everyone in Moriarty's saloon was in no mood to be noisy. "That's Abraham Ryder, but everyone just calls him Abri. I don't know why, since I'm new here myself, but there you go. He comes and goes; he's not a trader or raider or anything, he just… I don't even know. He's super smart, though, I know that, and nobody here back-talks him like they do with Gob."

"Oh," Mouse murmured. She remained curled up on the chair for a while longer, until a cramping rumble in her stomach forced her to move. Reluctantly, she got to her feet and picked up a Vault 101-issued bag from the floor. Slinging it over her shoulder, she checked to make sure all her worldly possessions were inside—ancient BB gun, baseball bat, ball and glove from her childhood, as well as audio chips that had yet to go into her Pip-Boy.

"Where are you going, Mouse?" Lucy asked, seeing Mouse stand.

Mouse awkwardly shifted her weight from foot to foot. "N-N-Nova s-said I should go find M-Moira and sell things I d-don't need anym-more."

There was a snicker on the other side of the room, then a small handful of men burst into laughter. "Didja hear her talk?" one of them cackled. "I ain't never noticed the stutter before!"

Mortification made her cheeks burn hot, hotter than the radiation and sun could ever make them. Mouse quickly turned away, hiding her embarrassment in the shadows by the door. Fine blonde hair fell from the messy knot at the back of her head, covering her eyes as tears threatened to overcome.

"Mouse, wait," Lucy called as Mouse reached for the door. "Wait, please, just ignore them."

Her fingertips grazed the doorknob; a roughened hand grabbed it before she could. Mouse immediately froze, just like her namesake would at a sign of danger.

"Let me get that for you." She recognized the low rumble as Abri's voice, and she squeezed her eyelids together. No, not him. He was so… she didn't know. Words couldn't describe how bizarre he was. He turned the handle and the insane light of the morning smacked her in the face, making her flinch. How could any light be so bright? Nothing in the vault could compare.

"I'm headed to Moira's anyway," he continued, holding open the door for her. "I might as well show you the way."

Keeping her head down, Mouse ducked through the door and scurried across a sheet of plastic. Maybe she could find Moira's shop on her own, without his help, and she could be on her way; she needed to find her father…

Footsteps rang out behind her. Damn. "Do you even know where you're going?" Humour laced his voice.

Mouse stopped, hand hovering above a metal railing. "M-Moira's store?" she whispered.

He kept quiet a moment. He probably hadn't even heard what she said. Nobody ever did. "Huh? Well, do you have the name?"

She exhaled slowly and cautiously opened one eye more than just a sliver. Christ, the sun was so bright. It hurt to keep her eyes open for any length of time. Already, they were starting to water. "N-N-No…"

This time, he heard it. "Craterside Supply. I'll take you there," he said again. "Come here?"

Mouse swallowed a heavy lump in her throat, and slowly turned to face him. Thankfully, he was beneath the shade of some strange object or another, and she could actually keep her eyes open to look at him. Gripping the strap of her pristine bag—101 stitched into the side—she shuffled closer.

As soon as she was close enough, he pulled a hand from his pocket. It was rough, calloused, lightly dusted with fine black hairs—but small and limber, she noticed. It didn't suit the giant gun on his back, not at all. "I'm Abri Ryder," he announced, holding out his hand for her.

Real name or the only name anyone ever called her? Shutting her eyes briefly to give them a rest from the sunlight, she mumbled, "A-Amanda."

Abri laughed. "That's not what Gob said. He said Lucy West was calling you Mouse. Lucy doesn't just _give _people nicknames." When she remained quiet, he added, "So who are you? Amanda or Mouse?"

She hesitated, but only for a few seconds. There was no point lying to him. She had never really been Amanda. "M-Mouse."

"That's what I thought. And I didn't hear what Lucy told you about me, but I'm Abri. That's it." He suddenly grabbed her hand and shook it vigorously. Mouse gasped, and looked up to see him grinning widely beneath his suntan and little beard. "Nice to meet you, Mouse."

"Y-You too, Abr-r-ri."

He suddenly released her hand and clapped it on her back, pulling her toward another ramp. "This way to Moira's. I take it you're new to town?"

She jumped a little. Was he just making conversation, or had Gob actually told him nothing about her? "Y-Yes."

"Hm." Strangely, he didn't question her further, only continued to lead her down many ramps toward the centre of town, where the atom bomb sat in the middle of the crater. They passed a few of the other residents of Megaton along the way. One of the children they passed, a cute little girl, gasped and gawked when she saw Mouse and the numbers stamped all over her jumpsuit, and instantly ran off somewhere.

Finally, Abri directed her toward a building overlooking part of town. "All right, here it is. Moira's Craterside Supply. Come on in, make yourself at home." That must have been the policy of the store—as soon as he finished speaking, he swung open the door and marched inside, shouting, "I'm back, Moira!"

There was suddenly a loud, high-pitched squeal form inside. "Ooh, you are, aren't you? Gosh, I'm so excited I could about take on a mutie! Well, no, maybe not," the woman amended almost as soon as she said it.

"I'd love to see you try, Moira."

"Oh, I could do it, so long as I figure out a repellent. So, how was Minefield?"

Mouse peered into the dusty building and spotted Abri speaking to a young woman in a mechanic jumpsuit. Her ginger hair was tied back, away from her face, and she wore a wide smile as she peered up at her customer. The shop itself was littered with junk of all kinds, and a shadowy man stood near an open door, wearing a scowl and armour.

She really didn't want to go in there.

"I'll tell you all about it in a sec, Moira. Here." Abri gestured toward the door, where Mouse still lingered. "This is Megaton's newest tumbleweed: Mouse. Mouse, this is Moira, respected proprietor of Craterside Supply."

Six eyes turned her way, and Mouse cringed and somehow resisted the urge to turn and run. She would have had she been back in the vault. If Butch and his Tunnel Snakes had been bugging her. If she was with Amata.

Abri and Moira both watched her with kind eyes and warm smiles. The armoured man in the back merely observed.

Mouse managed a little smile as a greeting. Or rather, it was more of one side of her mouth twitching, but still, it was as good as they were going to get.

Moira's eyes narrowed to see through the darkness of her store, then they suddenly bulged. "Oh, goodness me! Vault One-oh-One? I haven't seen one of you vault folk for a long time!"

Hopes were raised and dashed in an instant. For a split second, while Moira sounded so intrigued by Mouse's vault number, she had actually assumed that her father had passed through here and maybe even spoken to Moira. But then, that had only been a split second. Three days wasn't a _long time_.

The owner of the store tilted her head to the side like a curious animal. "You don't say much, do you?"

Abri smiled and shook his head. "This has got to be the quietest vault dweller ever. The last one I saw… he never stopped talking."

_Are more vault dwellers out here? Is it common to leave?_

Mouse gazed at them, wishing she could voice her questions and finally get some answers.

"Mouse, was it? You can come inside, you know. You're letting all the radiation in," Moira said, good-natured all the while.

Gasping at the thought, Mouse quickly stepped into the building and let the door fall shut behind her. The room was lit only by dim lamps on the ceiling, but Mouse's eyes had no difficulty at all adjusting to the lack of light. It was like the vault in here, only with warmer light and less sterilization.

Abri furrowed his brows at her as he watched her. "Hey, your eyes are actually open for once," he mentioned cheerfully. "Pretty blue eyes."

"Oh?" Moira leaned in closer, and Mouse's nose had no choice but to wrinkle—Moira reeked of strange chemicals, and something that smelled like old feet soaked in rotted meat. "Oh, hey, you're right. But what do you mean that her eyes are actually—oh!" she suddenly exclaimed. Mouse flinched, but Abri looked completely unfazed by Moira's erratic behaviour. "You poor thing! I remember, the last vault kid I saw had the same problem. Couldn't keep the peepers open outside, but had a blast inside. I… oh… I sold my last pair of sunglasses to the folks who came into town a few days ago," she said, rather dejectedly.

"I might have some." Abri lifted his backpack onto the counter nearby and began to rummage through it. "Actually, that's the whole reason I'm back in town, Moira. I picked up a lot of stuff I thought you might be interested in."

"Sure, I'll take a look. But what if I'm not interested?"

"I just want your caps," he said flatly, and Moira giggled.

"I guess that's fair. Hey!" she exclaimed upon peeking into the backpack. Grinning, she reached in and plucked out a thick circular object covered in dirt and dust. "You got me one!"

Mouse gawked at it, head tilted. She had never seen something like that before. It resembled a really unnecessarily hefty plate, with a slight dome rather than a hollow. It was a dark grey-brown colour, and was menacing despite being—she thought—completely harmless.

"Well, you did mention wanting one," Abri said, helping Moira remove the junk from his backpack. Several books in varying conditions; a large stack of funny-looking clothes; a wrapped package that smelled suspiciously like Moira's old foot-rotted meat combination; a ten mill gun—Mouse recognized it immediately, as she had one hooked under her belt.

Moira smiled and set it down on the counter before reaching into the bag and pulling out several glass bottles filled with a dark brown liquid. "Bring this to Jenny," she suggested, clinking the bottles together. "She's been itching for some new Nuka-Cola. After all, that Church of Atom preacher seems to love them."

"I've got the fix if she's got the caps."

As they bantered back and forth, Mouse crept up to the counter and bent down to peer at the strange disc Moira had set there. It looked mechanical; there was what looked like a sensor button on top, but she couldn't be sure. Very carefully, she poked a finger at the side. Wasteland dirt crumbled onto her skin. It was metal, slightly warmed from being in the backpack and the heat of the outdoors.

Now, what the hell was it?

Mouse glanced back at Abri and Moira. They were both ogling an impressive-looking gun with a long barrel and some strange circular object stuck to the bottom of it.

"You sure you don't want this, Abri?" Moira was asking as she looked down the barrel. "I could get you a lot of caps for it…"

Abri handed it over to her. "I've got one at home. Keep it."

"Oh, goody! I've wanted to take one of these bad boys apart for so long. Speaking of, how'd you get that mine?"

Abri glanced at the counter and saw Mouse poking at the strange disc. He chuckled, and said, "I found myself near Minefield, and remembered you told me you wanted to take one apart. I grabbed one up and disarmed it, and here you go. Thank God it's disarmed," he added. "That could've blown up in your face."

Mouse jumped back just as her fingers touched the sensor button. "It c-could _b-b-b-blow up?_" she squeaked. Terror shook through her, and she gawked at Abri and Moira, horrified that they would bring something so dangerous into a store.

To her astonishment, Abri was grinning at her. Moira's brows were raised into her hairline, and she seemed to have forgotten the gun in her hands.

"So you _can _talk," Moira muttered, as Abri began to laugh, probably at Mouse's expression.

She stared at them, perplexed. What was so funny?

Abri reached in front of her and plucked up the disc. Mouse gasped and backed up, expecting it to blow up at any second. "Mouse, this is a mine. It's supposed to be buried in the ground and it'll explode if weight is set on it. But I disarmed it when I got it—I turned it off. Otherwise it would've killed me as soon as I walked near it. Play with it all you want, it won't hurt you."

She shook her head, and the two with her laughed again. "Skittish as a mouse, huh?" Moira joked, and put the gun on the counter before reaching back into the bag. "More clothes, Abri? Nobody wears pre-war stuff anymore. Too many raiders for that stuff." She dropped a pile of folded beige clothes onto the counter and something dark slipped from between two bunches of fabric to fall to the floor.

"Klutz," Abri muttered as Moira bent to pick it up.

"More like super hunter," she corrected, straightening and holding up what had fallen. Spectacles with dark lenses.

"Perfect." Abri took them from her and held them out to Mouse. "So you don't hurt your eyes every single time you go outside, vault rat," he said, smiling.

Mouse gingerly accepted the gift and slipped the glasses into the breast pocket of her Vault 101 jumpsuit.

"Is there anywhere in particular you want me to go next, Moira?" Abri thoughtfully asked. "I've got to head into DC to see Three Dog, but I could put that off a bit."

Moira tapped her chin with what looked like a piece of an ancient vacuum cleaner. "Just get me more stuff to play with," she settled with after a moment of thought. Setting the vacuum down, Moira finished unloading the backpack. "I'll just take it all, how's about, hm? Let me count up the caps for you."

As Moira slipped behind the counter and began rummaging around, Abri leaned back against the edge and gave Mouse a thoughtful look. "If you're from Vault One-oh-One, what are you doing out here in Megaton?" he asked softly.

Mouse rubbed her palms on the sides of her jumpsuit. She needed to get rid of it as soon as she could; it was only advertising that she was from the vault. "M-M-My f-father left," she mumbled, "and I'm l-look-king f-for him."

Abri's thick brows arched upwards. "Really? What's your father's name?"

Emotion filled Mouse's head, making her feel stuffed and foggy. Tears prickled her eyes; she rubbed them, but there was no wetness to wipe away. "J-James."

He merely watched her in silence for several minutes. Uncomfortable with his gaze, Mouse looked past him, at a collection of metal junk on shelves near the counter. Abri sighed after some time, removed his glasses, and started wiping the lenses on the hem of his clothes. His eyes, now uncovered, were a very pretty hazel, a perfect brown-green combination. It was a colour Mouse had rarely seen before.

"Mouse," he said as he scrutinized his glasses. Finding something wrong, he continued to clean them. "This is going to seem upfront and weird, especially to a vault dweller, and I know that, but… come with me to DC. I promise it'll be worth your while."

She glanced back at him and frowned. Why would a stranger offer to take her all the way across a nuclear desert? People from the Wasteland were very strange.

Abri must have seen her indecision. "I'll make sure you're safe. I know every bit of the Capital Wasteland better than my own face. And once we get to DC, if you want, I'll take you back out here, or you could stay there."

Something seemed wrong. "Wh-Why w-would I want t-to go to D-DC?"

The corner of his mouth pulled upward the slightest bit. "Trust me, you want to. If there's any place to look for your father, it'll be DC. You could come with me to meet Three Dog."

Mouse eyed him blankly. He sounded as though he expected her to know who Three Dog was.

"Uh, Abri," Moira interjected, "she's new to the Wasteland, and GNR's been on the fritz out here. Just ask Gob about it. She probably doesn't have a clue who Three Dog is." Abri cursed quietly, and Moira smiled. "Just go with him, Mouse," she suggested, glancing at the blonde girl as she scooped a pile of bottle caps into her hand. "He really does know the Wasteland better than anyone. And I hear DC is nice, when you're away from the super mutants."

"And besides," Abri continued for her, "we'd be going to the GNR building. There's no safer place in DC."

"Wh-What's—"

"Galaxy News Radio. The only half-decent radio station we've got. We could listen to the Enclave's mumbo jumbo, but that's a waste of time." Abri buckled up his backpack and adjusted the clips around several guns strapped to the outside. "If I had a radio with me, I'd never stop listening to GNR. Shitty I can't lug a jukebox around with me, though."

Mouse stole a glance down at the Pip-Boy on her arm. It used to pick up the Vault 101 PA frequency—and when she left the vault and was wandering the desert the first day, she passed a hovering robot and her Pip-Boy went crazy with static and noise: and some man's voice talking behind it all. It had to be one of the radio stations they mentioned.

Curious—and because Abri and Moira got distracted by one of the guns in Abri's possession—Mouse lifted up her arm and flicked her Pip-Boy screen from her physical stats to the data screen, where she always used to be able to tune in and out of the PA in the vault.

Abri suddenly laughed and said, "No, you can't have it, Moira. So, Mouse, what do you say—what the _hell _is that?" he asked bluntly upon seeing the Pip-Boy held up to Mouse's face.

She glanced up at him, eyes wide. His jaw was dropped, his eyes fixed on the machine; Moira was in a similar condition. "P-Pip-B-Boy Three Th-Thousand…"

Abri looked over at Moira. "I don't remember the other vault dweller I saw wearing one of those."

"I never noticed 'til now," Moira concurred. "Gotta say, I only saw because of the green glow on her face from it."

"Me too." Abri slunk up beside her; Mouse flinched. Very gently, he took her hand in his and moved her arm so he could see the Pip-Boy screen. The light emanating from the screen lit up the green in his eyes. Cautiously, expertly, he experimented with the different switches and knobs; he flicked from the data screen to the stats screen, and went from her overall health to her radiation level.

"Hm," he grunted, frowning at that particular screen. "We should get you some Rad Away. What did you do?"

"S-S-Stepped in w-water."

Abri shook his head and flicked to another screen. "No, that was a lot more than just a few rads."

Mouse grimaced at the memory. A ledge, a radroach, an upturned root, and a hidden pond of gross water. "I t-tripped."

"Into water?"

Abri looked at her expectantly, and Mouse merely returned the gaze.

_I hid from the radroach in the pond when I fell. It wouldn't follow me in the water._

Muttering something under his breath, he flicked to another screen. And another. Finally, he returned to the radio function, and a little smile perked up his face. "This thing measures radio waves? Moira, look." He held out Mouse's arm so Moira could see. "It even registered GNR's name."

"Ooh," Moira cooed, impressed.

Abri twisted another knob, and static began to issue from the metal armband.

"V-Vault P-PA system…"

He nodded and twisted a little further. The static lessened, though it didn't quite leave, and gentle music began to come out of the Pip-Boy. Abri and Moira glanced at each other and grinned.

"I'm keeping you," Abri announced teasingly, shutting off the music and beaming at Mouse. "You can be my personal little radio. And map and clock and Geiger counter…" He let go of her arm and she instantly hid it behind her. "Will you come with me, Mouse? It's a one-time offer; if I leave Megaton without you, I doubt we'll see each other again. The Wasteland's a big place. A lot bigger than a vault. I'm sorry if I'm coming off as pushy and creepy, but trust me, you _want _to go to DC."

She glanced between him and Moira. Both were looking at her in silence. Behind her back, her fingers twisted together anxiously; her palms were sweaty with nervousness, only accentuated by the warmth given off by her Pip-Boy and the irradiated heat outside.

"_And for God's sake, Mouse, be careful." _Amata's words rang through her head as she pondered it. It was one of the last things her best friend said to her before she fled the vault, leaving havoc in her wake. Dead security guards, a wounded and furious Overseer, Jonas Palmer's corpse sprawled on the floor, next to the audio recording of her father's voice…

The last time she heard him speak.

Mouse shut her eyes, but all she could see was her father's closest friend and assistant, sprawled on the sterile metal floor, blood staining his white medical coat. For Jonas, for Amata, for all the residents of Vault 101, Mouse had to find her father and fix the mess he had made—whatever it was.

And would going with Abri Ryder be honouring Amata's wish, and being careful?

Mouse didn't know.

She desperately wished she could go back to Vault 101 and just talk to Amata again. Talk to Jonas. To Freddie. Hell, she'd even take Butch, if it meant being with someone she had grown up around.

Mouse looked at Moira. The proprietor of Craterside Supply was smiling distantly as she gazed at Mouse. And Abri… he just looked worried.

She had just met the man that morning. Less than an hour before.

She hadn't even realized she came to a decision when she shook her head. "I c-can't. I d-don't kn-know you."

Abri nodded and pushed his hair away from his face. "Fair enough. Moira, give her half my caps. Give her a good deal if she sells you anything."

Reminded that she actually did intend to sell Moira the junk in her bag—no, it wasn't junk, it was precious nostalgia from her childhood—Mouse slipped the strap of the bag off her shoulder and dropped the entire thing on the counter.

Apparently seeing this as an invitation, Moira immediately reached in and started exploring.

Looking back at Abri, Mouse stammered, "I c-can't t-take your b-bottle c-caps."

"Actually, you can." Abri pulled toward him a stack of caps Moira had made on the counter. Mouse watched as he went behind the counter and unearthed a brown paper bag. He shoved all the caps into it, rolled it up, and set it into her bag without a word.

Mouse let Abri deal with Moira when the shopkeeper started talking about prices of the things Mouse had. With incredible persuasion, Abri convinced Moira to buy them for a lot higher than she should have, and he added the caps to the paper bag.

As he held out her bag for her, he said, "Buy protection if you can. If you can't, kill a raider, take his armour. Collect guns and ammo. Sell the ones you don't need. Repair the ones you do."

A ping of unhappiness stabbed Mouse as she watched Moira lock away her things—the baseball paraphernalia, the BB gun her father and Jonas gave her when she was ten. She would never get them back, and the memories attached to them would eventually fade away.

Moira leaned over the counter and squinted. "What's that you got there? A ten mill pistol? Okay." She reached beneath the counter and stuck a box into Mouse's bag. "Ammo. On the house. And hey, I've got an idea," she said slowly, as a smile spread across her face.

Abri groaned and shook his head. "_No_, Moira, don't."

She ignored him and smiled innocently at Mouse. "One of these vaulties showed up in Megaton, oh, say, ten or so years ago, and left behind this armoured jumpsuit. I could give it to you for a sweet deal."

"_Moira_," Abri said sternly. "She's just a kid, and she's already sick."

"Well, if she's already sick, it won't matter much, will it? Mouse, I'll give you that armoured jumpsuit—it's even from Vault One-oh-One—if you agree to doing something for me."

And so, Moira launched into an explanation of how she was going to become a great author, and she intended to make a Wasteland survival kit in book form for those who were inexperienced at living in the wild. Apparently, Abri had been inadvertently helping her ever since he started frequenting Megaton a few years prior, but he always refused to do one little thing Moira mentioned here and there.

Get severe radiation sickness.

Since Mouse was already sick from the water, Moira figured she might as well just avoid Rad Away until she felt like hell, then she should come back to Craterside Supply to see what happens.

Well, that's what Abri translated for her once Moira finished speaking. The redhead used words Mouse had never even heard before.

Mouse kept quiet for a long time after Moira and Abri concluded their joint explanation. Nobody told her what would happen if she got extremely sick from radiation. If it was really bad, they would've warned her, right?

She lifted one shoulder, and Moira beamed. "I g-g-guess…"

"Oh, good! Here, the jumpsuit." Moira folded up the item in question and climbed over the counter to shove it into Mouse's bag. "Just come back when you start feeling sick. And I figure your device there will tell you when you're really irradiated."

"I hope you know what you're getting into. Can I see your arm for a second?" Abri snuck a peek at her Pip-Boy, and made a clucking sound. "I've got to leave. I meant to hit Springvale on my way back from Minefield, but I was distracted by Tenpenny's goons."

Moira _tsk_'d and shook her head. "Is he still sending them after you? It's been three years. You'd think the guy would stop bothering himself with you by now."

Mouse looked at them, hoping for an explanation but too timid to voice it.

They must have noticed, for Abri began, "Did you see the atomic bomb in the middle of town when you came in?"

Mouse nodded; there was no way to _not _have noticed it.

Abri grunted a slight chuckle. "It's a pimple on the ass of Megaton. It's been leaking radiation into the city ever since it was built, but it hadn't harmed anyone—except that kook from the Church of Atom who stands in irradiated water all day. Lucas Simms, local sheriff and mayor—"

Here, Moira scoffed.

"—was scared something would happen if it was left alone any longer. He asked me if I could take a look at it. I did, and after a few days of tinkering and experimenting, I disarmed it. That was the scariest thing I've ever done with a bomb," he divulged, distracted. "That was three years ago. Alistair Tenpenny wanted to trigger it and didn't like what I'd done. He's been sending mercs after me ever since."

"It's not just that," Moira pointed out. "You're a ghoul sympathizer. You help people live in hospitable places more affordable than Tenpenny Tower. He just hates you in general. Everything you do irks him."

Abri rolled his eyes. "He can live with it. Mercs aren't enough to scare me off, even if I suck with a gun. I'd better go. I'll be back with more goodies from Springvale," he promised, pointing to Moira.

"I thought it was picked clean."

"Silver finds me things, in return for keeping her health a secret from Colin."

"Ah. Have fun!"

"I will." Turning to Mouse, he smiled and said, "Maybe I'll see you around, Mouse. If you're ever in DC, talk to Three Dog. He might know where you can find people useful."

Mouse managed a pitiable smile. "L-Like y-you?"

Abri laughed and shrugged. "Sure, like me. You never know, I could be in the DC area soon enough. See you." He clapped a hand on Moira's shoulder as a farewell, and then in a blast of orange light from outside, he was gone.

Moira picked up a broom from the wall behind her and absently started sweeping. She gave Mouse a long look, then shook her head and muttered, "Should've gone with him. The Wasteland's going to swallow you up, Mousie."


	3. Let's go sunning

Within five minutes of going outside, Mouse had a sunburn.

Or, well, maybe that was a slight exaggeration. She left Moira's Craterside Supply, stood on the balcony for a few moments as she spotted Abri Ryder wandering toward the exit of the town—and pondered chasing after him to take up his offer, but she somehow resisted _that _particular urge—and when she was done on the balcony, she, by the grace of God, managed to make it back to Moriarty's Saloon, where she informed Nova the prostitute, who was outside for a cigarette, that she was leaving town for a while. Then she got a birds-eye view of Megaton to find her way out, and she scurried her way down the ramps and planes until she managed to find the giant gate leading out of Megaton.

So, maybe it was twenty minutes. Possibly more.

Still, as soon as she was about to leave Megaton, Lucas Simms, self-proclaimed sheriff and mayor, stopped her with a loud whistle.

"Wow. When did you decide to get Brahmin skin instead of human skin?" he asked, eyes wide.

Mouse arched her eyebrows, and immediately regretted it. Tight, nagging pain pulled at her skin, and she tried to keep her expression as flat as possible. Looking down at her hands and arms, her jaw dropped when she saw it—pale Vault 101 skin turned red. Brahmin red.

"O-Oh," she stammered, gawking at her abused flesh. That's what she got for rolling up the sleeves of the jumpsuit to try escaping the nuclear heat. Skin cancer. She learned about it in school. Now she had to look out for that _as well _as dying from radiation poisoning.

"You should get yourself a hat, little lady," Simms said, tugging on the brim of his own rather impressive headgear. "Or at least stay inside during day. Become nocturnal, you know."

He cackled at some joke he made. Mouse frowned at him, not understanding. Maybe she should go back to Moira's store and see if she had a hat. No, no. That was only a distraction. She needed to get to DC as quickly as she could to find her father and persuade him to go back to the vault with her. No more of this 'go outside' nonsense.

Hunching her shoulders around her ears, Mouse hurried through the gates of Megaton and stepped into the open, vast expanse of the Capital Wasteland. Exhaling slowly, she rolled down the sleeves of her jumpsuit over her tender, reddened skin, and stole a glance at the green glow of her Pip-Boy. Thank God there was a map of the Wasteland built right in. It said DC was to the east, which was her… right. Wonderful.

Mouse glanced behind her at the robot that stood guard over Megaton. She knew she was behind ridiculous, but whatever. She ran over to a boulder and hid behind it, making sure the robot couldn't scan her from its distance, before shedding her jumpsuit and zipping up the armoured look-alike Moira had given her. It was a little tight—the zipper didn't quite cover the white t-shirt she wore underneath—but otherwise, it was a good fit. She wondered absently who owned it last as she folded up her old jumpsuit and tucked it into her bag.

Standing and clipping her ten mill pistol onto the belt loop of the jumpsuit, she decided it was time to go. Although, her sunburns hurt and the armoured part of the armoured jumpsuit was heavy and annoying, and the sunglasses Abri had given her were too big for her face and kept slipping down her nose.

"Stop whining, Mouse," she told herself in an undertone as she strode away from the boulder, following her Pip-Boy map east. Turning a knob, she noticed there was a new marker added where Megaton was. That would be good for getting back there without having to hunt the place down again. Direction wasn't her forte. She couldn't even count the number of times she had gotten lost in the vault.

And there was that time when the janitor had to find her, because nobody knew where she had gotten herself. She had only been looking for Jonas, after all. It wasn't _her _fault the layout of the place was so damn confusing.

Mouse's already red cheeks flushed hotter as she recalled the embarrassing moment when the janitor announced over the vault PA that Dr James' daughter had been found in a restricted area of the vault, terrified, but unharmed.

And there she was, back on the dad topic. Goal: find James. How? Well, Abri Ryder had sure mentioned DC a lot, so it was probably her best chance. She had no other leads, anyways. She might as well go to this Three Dog person, whoever he was, and ask about her father.

Though, she wondered why Abri had even mentioned it to her in the first place. Maybe, since he was a radio personality, Three Dog knew a lot of big-deal people who wandered the Wasteland? She wasn't sure her father qualified as a "big-deal person" but she might as well find out.

And find out soon. The afternoon was _scorching_. It felt like it would fry off her hair any second.

Panting as she crested a rather sizable hill, Mouse took a second to just survey. There was a building still standing at the bottom of the hill, and a way after that, the multilevel skyscrapers and towers of the big city started. Broken freeways and on-ramps littered the distance to the north, but to the east, in front of her, it was a glittering mass of bent steel and shattered glass. The ruins of DC awaited her, and hopefully, so did her father.

And right in front of it? A river. The Potomac, unless she was misreading the little green lettering on her Pip-Boy. Mouse was suddenly very aware of how dry her mouth was, and the fact that she forgot to buy food supplies from whoever sold them in Megaton.

Mouse made a slight whimpering sound as she eyed the sparkling water. It looked less than reputable, but it was water. And it was probably irradiated like the pond she had hidden from the radroach in, but it was water. And this nuclear desert made her throat itch.

But… Mouse's eyes drifted away from the tantalizing sight of water and came to a wavering rest on the little building at the foot of the hill. With an empty, flat concrete area beside it, and wire basket vehicles littered all over the place, Mouse thought it was a store of sorts. What were they called, parking lots and shopping carts? She'd seen pictures of them in textbooks in school.

She narrowed her eyes and lowered the sunglasses just a fraction so she could see in clear light. Nope, that particular manoeuvre didn't help, and only blinded her a little more. Sliding the glasses back on, she squinted through the insanely bright light of the day. There was a tall sign beside the building that read Super Duper Mart.

Mouse gawked at it a moment. "What kind of name is _that?_" she mumbled to herself as she started to carefully trek down the hill. Loose rocks blanketed the slope, and she wasn't too keen on slipping and plummeting to her death, mere days after leaving the vault. How embarrassing would that be?

"Getting side-tracked, Mouse." She always found it easier to think aloud, and besides, her father always told her that talking normally even when nobody was around would help her get over her extreme social anxiety. He'd lied, of course. It hadn't gotten any better over the years, and now she was in the habit of talking to herself like she was insane.

Anyways, back on track. Super Duper Mart. Ridiculous name, but a grocery store. Grocery stores were notorious for having food, or so her vault school textbook proclaimed. First stop on the way to DC: the Super Duper Mart.

Nothing of any value would be left inside, but maybe there would be some preservatives. Canned food, sort of like what they had at the vault, but probably much worse quality. It wouldn't be nice, but it would be food, and that was all that really mattered at the moment. Survival was key.

Mouse nearly lost her footing at the bottom of the hill and skidded several metres. Grappling a tilted pole to save herself, she panted lightly and wiped sweat from her forehead. She was slick with the stuff; it coated her face and neck in a fine film, making her hair stick to her scalp and itch. She had never been this hot before. The vault's cooling systems made sure of that.

She took a moment to rest, clinging desperately to the scratchy wooden pole. Her chest was heaving with the effort to keep going, her legs ached from climbing the hill, and her eyes burned despite the sunglasses Abri had so kindly given her. God, how could he possibly wander the Wasteland so often? Mouse felt like she was dying. This desert was a veritable hellhole.

She could only be thankful that she hadn't come across some hungry, irradiated creature yet.

That would just be the icing on the cake, wouldn't it?

Reluctantly letting go of the pole, Mouse began to crunch over the rocks and debris littering the ground, making a beeline for the Super Duper Mart. Friction from the cloth of the old jumpsuit rubbing against her forearms made her burned skin scream in protest, and her eyes were starting to water from the brightness. It was an all round bad start to her first day wandering the desert.

She trudged along in silence, save for the desperate panting as her body tried to cool itself. Finally, she reached the edge of the Super Duper Mart parking lot, where there was a very, very slight bit of shade. Lurching into it with an explosive breath out, Mouse leaned her arm on the wall of the store to catch her breath.

Once her erratic breathing and pulse had calmed a little, she adjusted the strap of her bag over her shoulder and wandered curiously up to the front doors of the store. The glass windows were coated in a thick layer of dirt, making it virtually impossible to see inside. Mouse scratched at it with a nail, and barely made a dent in the mess. Paint was peeling from the walls, and the doors were threatening to fall off their hinges.

Mouse stared at it for a moment, blinking as if to clear her vision. This couldn't be right. This couldn't be the place that would help her survive. It looked barely able to stand on its own.

Well, she wouldn't complain. Mouse reluctantly set her hand on the worn metal handle and tugged. It didn't move. Just her luck. Gripping it tighter, she pulled harder, and it budged, letting loose a shower of dirt on her head. Grimacing, she snatched it up with her other hand and yanked as hard as she could. The door instantly swung open, nearly smacking her out of its path.

She took a moment to recover before reluctantly slipping into the front of the store. It was dark, of course—she hadn't expected many of the lights to still work. Dirt and dust blanketed everything she could see; her lungs trembled with the urge to cough, but she covered her mouth, trying to keep from inhaling too much of the particles floating in the air.

Just as she was about to turn a corner into an aisle that would hopefully hold food, a loud shout echoed across the store. It was immediately followed by a crash and frantic shouting.

Mouse froze, her jaw dropped. What was going on? Was somebody else in the store? _Had they seen her?_

Squeezing her eyes shut, she whispered, "P-P-Please d-don't k-kill me."

The snaps and pops of gunpowder igniting suddenly filled the grocery store, making Mouse squeak and duck behind a counter nearby. Footsteps thudded in the distance, and something metal crashed to the floor. Curses and snarls were interrupted only by gunfire.

Crouching behind a counter, Mouse shuffled into a corner and shakily pulled out her ten mill pistol. She had used it in the vault when she was escaping the madness—and even then, it was only to wound. She wasn't good enough to actually _hurt _anybody. If whoever was raiding the grocery store decided to kill her, well, that was it.

Her palms slipped on the butt of the gun from the sweat dripping from her pores. It wasn't enough that the day was unbearably hot—she had to be nervous and about to die at any second, too.

There was a sudden agonized scream that made her skin crawl. More footsteps thudded around—close enough that she could feel the vibrations in the ancient floor. Mouse flinched and tried to grip the gun tighter.

"P-Please, G-God," she whispered, biting her lip to keep them from trembling, "s-save m-me."

A grunt, another gunshot, and somebody suddenly vaulted over the counter and skidded on the floor in front of her. Mouse's heart skipped several beats, but she was too shocked to scream or run. She merely stared.

It was a woman, age and race undeterminable in the darkness of the grocery store. All Mouse could tell was that she was heavily armoured, holding a gun with what looked like a pump, and had extremely short hair.

The woman shuffled up to the edge of the counter and carefully peered over the top, gritting her teeth and panting quietly. There were a few more shouts across the store, but they seemed to be quieting down. From what Mouse could hear, nobody was actively pursuing anyone yet.

Mouse didn't dare move, even as her impromptu companion hunched over and hid from view behind the counter. She backed up, her heavy boots crunching on broken glass, until her heel bumped into Mouse's toe.

Mouse yelped softly.

The woman turned and instantly slapped a sweaty, gloved hand over Mouse's mouth. She reeked of sweat and death. Leaning in close—enough for Mouse to tell that she was dark-skinned and looked a lot older than Mouse—she whispered, "Make a sound, and I blow your fucking head off."

Mouse's eyes bugged and she nodded jerkily.

Satisfied, the woman let go of her mouth and calmly drummed her fingers on her weapon. There were noises across the store again, and they were coming closer.

Looking back at Mouse, the woman's mouth twitched slightly, and her eyes narrowed. It was the simplest, scariest expression Mouse had ever seen in her nineteen years of existence. "You're getting me out of here, kid," she hissed, roughly grabbing Mouse's arm and pulling her out of her corner. "You run, and you won't live long enough to regret it."

Terror made Mouse's brain stop working. She let the woman shove her to her feet and hold her in front of her like a shield. Stumbling, Mouse was pushed over the counter and toward the entrance, with her captor behind her, aiming the gun over her shoulder.

"Hey!" somebody shouted, and Mouse could barely make out a figure atop one of the aisles ahead of them. Damn, she was still wearing her sunglasses. "Hey, she's getting away!"

"Shit," the woman holding Mouse swore. Viciously shoving Mouse toward the door, she quickly aimed, pumped, and pulled the trigger of her gun before turning and sprinting toward the exit. "Get the fuck outta here," she snarled, elbowing Mouse as she ran from the building. Mouse's limbs suddenly warmed up and she followed the woman, deciding then and there that she had to be a pretty good person if she hadn't killed Mouse on the spot.

They burst from the gloom of the Super Duper Mart into the hellish sunlight of the great outdoors. Mouse's leg was starting to cramp up, but she tried to ignore it as she followed the African American woman across the asphalt parking lot. Her captor—or saviour, whichever—slid into a hiding place behind a decrepit vehicle, and Mouse hobbled up to her and nearly collapsed on the ground, panting with the effort of moving.

The woman was peering through the smashed out windows of the old car, her gun at the ready. After several moments, it seemed like they weren't going to be chased.

"Fuck." The woman climbed to her feet and started to hurry down a hill toward the ruins of DC. Terrified to be left alone, Mouse chased after her, her heart beginning to beat frantically again. They only stopped once they dropped down a small cliff face and hid behind it.

The dark woman gave Mouse a sharp look as she stumbled behind the cliff beside her. Aside from the strange armour she wore and the weapon she carried, she looked fairly normal. Healthy dark skin, wise chocolate eyes, and dark brown hair that looked like it had only just started growing out of a buzz cut.

"So you gonna say something, or just stare at me like a dumbass?" she demanded harshly.

Mouse flinched and uncomfortably rolled her shoulders. Thank you would be an appropriate way to start the conversation. Or maybe a, "What the hell were you doing, using me as a human shield?"

"Th-Thank y-you," Mouse whispered, looking down at her hands. "F-For h-h-helping."

The woman's face twisted into a grimace. "Just my luck—found someone who can't fucking talk. Got a name, kid?"

"M-Mouse."

"That's not a name. That's a fucking animal. Christ, what hole did _you _crawl out of?" she grumbled, shaking her head and rolling her eyes.

Mouse's brows arched and she wanted to say that she crawled out of the Vault 101 hole, but she never talked back to anyone but Amata, and sometimes her father. This deadly-looking stranger would certainly not be the type to just take it when a girl with a stutter used backtalk.

"Whatever, I don't give a shit where you came from, as long as you go back and get out of my hair ASAP," she muttered, glowering at Mouse.

Mouse's eyes drifted up to the woman's head, where her hair had to be less than an inch long. The woman caught her looking and snorted.

"Not literally, dumbfuck. Now scuttle off before I actually have a problem with you."

The woman looked at her expectantly, but Mouse was rooted to the ground. The cramp in her leg was aching, and all regular muscles were throbbing from the sudden hefty amount of exercise she was putting herself through. Her heart and lungs threatened to explode if she so much as moved a finger to scratch, and sweat soaked through her white t-shirt and jumpsuit, making her hair cling to her head.

"What, cat got your tongue?" The woman snickered at her awful joke, and Mouse grimaced slightly. That was one of the many jokes she had heard _way _too many times in her life. Ha-ha, right? The girl who has social anxiety, doesn't talk, and is nicknamed Mouse. Clever.

When Mouse remained silent, the woman peered at her with a frown. Mouse looked away, uncomfortable with the inspection, but didn't do anything to stop her. Finally, after several excruciating moments, the woman remarked, "Huh, Vault One-oh-One, eh? That's near here."

Mouse nodded, but said nothing.

"Still, little far from home, kid. Going somewhere?"

Mouse wrapped her arms around her knees, and looked at the pink burns on the backs of her hands. "D-D-D-C-C."

The woman grunted and shuffled so her boots scraped against the hardened dirt beneath them. "Hm. You won't make it to DC alive, kid. Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there you go. I mean, your fucking name is Mouse. What do you think's gonna happen?" She absently scratched the side of her nose, glistening with sweat like the rest of her. "Fuck, I don't want baggage to drag around with me, but I'm heading to Rivet City. I can take you through DC."

Mouse gawked at her. This had to be the crudest woman in the Capital Wasteland, and yet here she was, offering to escort Mouse across the desert. Maybe it wasn't just Abri who was super kind to strangers. Maybe it was a force of nature in this region—if you weren't helping, you couldn't expect to be helped, and that's something you need in a nuclear pit.

Or maybe it was just that people were interested in a vault dweller, and wanted to interrogate her as much as they could before parting ways.

She'd rejected Abri's offer, and now she regretted it. She would definitely prefer the friendly young man to this witch.

Mouse nodded jerkily, but kept her mouth shut.

The woman lifted a shoulder and wiped the sweat off her forehead, making her short hair stick up absurdly. "Joanie Beck," she grunted as she chewed on the corner of her lip. "I'm not going to baby you," she added, afterthought. "Can't pull your own weight, you can fuck right off. I'm not going to fight your battles or look after you. You ain't no child."

Mouse nodded again. Damn. She couldn't even try thinking about fighting her own battles. She had practically soiled herself with fear when escaping the vault.

Then again, those had been her friends' parents, her father's coworkers, who had been shooting at her, forcing her from her home like an unwanted pest.

Without warning, Joanie hopped agilely to her feet and began walking east. Mouse scrabbled quickly to her feet and limped after her, wincing with each step. Her muscles were burning, just like her skin in the sunlight. The day couldn't end fast enough.

They hiked for the rest of the afternoon. The going was fairly slow, as Joanie was extremely cautious for some reason, and Mouse could barely walk on her own—and there was no way her new companion was going to fashion her a crutch or let her lean on her shoulder. They only met a few radroaches and mole rats along the way, before the nuclear sun set and night set in. The air reeked of rot and water as they reached the Potomac River, but even so, the smell made Mouse's itchy throat ease and her mouth water.

Unfortunately, Joanie veered abruptly away from the river and marched into a dark alcove in a nearby suburb. Mouse hesitantly followed as her companion climbed over the edge of a shattered window, and covertly entered an ancient, burned building. Mouse pushed her sunglasses onto her head, completely blind in the darkness with them on. She couldn't tell exactly what type of building they were in, whether it was residential or commercial, but she figured Joanie didn't care either way. The woman was leading the way up a few sets of stairs, where they stopped in a small, cozy room that was largely untouched by fire and the more destructive effects of radiation.

Mouse settled down in the corner and hugged her bag close to her, taking comfort in one of the few small things she had from home. She watched silently as Joanie shoved the door shut and dragged a dresser of some sort across the room to block it with. There were no windows, which Mouse figured had to be to some advantage or another.

Joanie didn't say much all day, and that didn't change just because they had found a place to spend the night. She opened a small backpack she carried and rolled an aluminum can across the floor at Mouse. The blonde quickly scooped it up and gawked at it in the darkness.

Corn. Creamed corn, circa 2076.

Mouse's stomach churned at the thought of what was growing inside the can. Swallowing a lump in her throat, she glanced at Joanie and stammered, "Th-This is f-from a y-y-year b-bef-fore the w-war."

Joanie had already whipped out a giant combat knife from nowhere and began sawing off the top of her own can. "So?"

"Th-That w-was ov-ver t-two hun-ndred years ago…"

Beck stopped and peeled the top of the can. Tossing the aluminum coin on the floor, she suddenly threw the knife at Mouse. She screamed as it landed with a thud in the wall a few feet from her face. Not noticing, Joanie dipped her finger into her can and stuffed the contents in her mouth. "Over two hundred?" she remarked through a mouthful of _something_. "Shit, man, it's only two hundred and one. Big fucking deal. You gonna eat or not?"

Mouse gave the can a dubious stare.

Joanie groaned and held out her hand. "Fucking give it back then, if you're just going to look at it. Here's a big of news for you, vaultie—we don't got fresh food out here in the Wasteland. We got two hundred year old mush. Take it or leave it—unless you'd rather hunt and eat irradiated mutant meat."

Mouse hesitated another moment before shakily prying the knife from the wall and sawing off the top of her can, just as Joanie had. Two hundred year old mush. She held back a groan as she reminisced at the food in the vault cafeteria. Food fit for kings compared to what she was about to ingest, and that was saying a lot. She had never missed a chance to complain to Amata about the food prepared for the vault dwellers when they were children.

Finally, she folded back the impromptu lid of the can and set the knife down in the neutral zone between her and Joanie. Cringing and trying not to smell or look at the contents of the can, Mouse tipped the edge toward her mouth. The urge to vomit almost overwhelmed her as the sludge oozed into her gullet.

Joanie grunted positively and leaned comfortably back against the wall, crossing her ankles in front of her. Shovelling more food into her mouth, she remarked, "That's what I thought."


	4. Sure, I'm crazy

"Grayditch." Joanie's voice was sure as she looked over the rest of the town.

Mouse leaned to the side to peer past her companion. Joanie was staring out a broken window in the top floor of the building they camped out in the night before, and Mouse wanted to know what she was looking at.

"G-G-Grayd-ditch?" she stammered, confused.

Joanie nodded shortly. "Grayditch. Fucking ghost town." Very calmly, the woman slid her weapon—which Mouse had learned was called a shotgun—into a leather strap hanging from her waist, and tugged a longer, bulkier gun off her back. Joanie was covered with straps and buckles—Mouse guessed she had about ten different weapons on her person.

Mouse crept a few steps forward, but was too scared to go nearer to the window. She didn't want something bursting into the room and mauling them, after all.

Joanie fiddled with the new gun for a moment, then leaned out the window so her entire upper body was exposed. "Hm," she grunted, coming back inside. "People lived here last time I was around." She suddenly gave a short, harsh laugh. "Fuckers. Wonder what did it?"

"D-Did wh-what?" Mouse stared at Joanie's back, where there were three guns. They had to get heavy after a while. The thought of one person being so well armed made Mouse's knees weak.

Joanie glanced back at her awkward little companion. "Killed everyone in town." She looked back out the window and drummed her fingers on the butt of the gun. "Well, there's only one way to find out, huh?" Suddenly, she stood and rested the giant weapon over her shoulder. Without a word of explanation, she marched toward the door leading downstairs and out of their safe haven.

"Wh-Where a-are w-we g-g-going?" Mouse stammered, eyes bugging. She hurried after Joanie, albeit reluctantly, with her sweaty palm resting on the little ten mill gun at her side. She wouldn't be much help if it came to a firefight, but hey, having something that could potentially save her life made her feel a little bit better about exploring the Wastes.

Joanie hopped down three steps and skidded around a landing on the stairs. Pausing there, she looked up at Mouse as she took more care in descending the stairs. "Outside. Find the shitheads that killed every fucker in Grayditch."

They continued to the main floor in silence.

When they made it outside, Mouse was disheartened to see that the day was definitely just as hot and bright as its predecessor. With a sigh, she pushed the sunglasses on her nose, covering her sensitive blue eyes. Well, at least this time she was adequately covered—though she didn't have a hat—so hopefully she wouldn't aggravate her sunburns anymore.

Joanie cast her a short glance, probably having heard the sigh. She clucked her tongue and shook her head; the movement made the sunlight catch lighter brown in her dark hair. "Fuck, kid, you don't belong out here. It's a goddamn clusterfuck. You ain't gonna survive. Gotta be why you're going to DC, isn't it? Three Dog'll know what to do with you. And GNR's the safest place you can be. Man, that, or Rivet City."

Mouse peered at her, unsure how to reply. She didn't know what Rivet City was—she barely knew what DC was. She saw a flicker of emotion cross over Joanie's face as the woman scanned the destroyed town, and then they marched onwards.

—

Joanie rested her Chinese assault rifle on her shoulder as she stopped walking. They stood in the middle of the street, perfect target for any raiders wanting their scalps. She scowled as she eyed the glass-free windows in the decrepit skeleton buildings. There weren't any raiders, of course. They were safe standing where they were. There hadn't been any raiders in Grayditch since before the newest families started living there. She knew that for a fact.

She heard Mouse's awkward, shuffled footsteps scuffle up behind her, and she stifled a sigh. Fuck, she sure picked out the weird ones, didn't she? First Tyler and one of those Talon Company fuckers, and now this vault rat. She needed new friends.

Snorting, she drummed her fingers on the butt of the gun and continued walking down the street, with her pet Mousey on her heels. Fucking vault rat didn't know how to walk in the Wasteland. She was dragging her heels all over the place. Thank God she didn't stomp around, but dragging was just as bad. And she was wearing vault-issued soft-soled boots, no doubt. Joanie made no sound as she walked, and she had heavy combat boots.

They continued down the main street of Grayditch. She had once stopped by after her band's first slaughter, when the Wilks and the Brandices moved in. She had spent the better part of an hour talking to William Brandice. Crazy bastard.

Joanie's fist clenched on her rifle. No. Somebody had killed the Wilks and the Brandices. She wanted to know who. After her band was here, what, five years ago, nobody had come by Grayditch. No raiders, at least.

They came to the restaurant a few minutes later. It was where she had met Mrs Brandice. Joanie couldn't remember her name or what she looked like for the life of her. Mr Brandice was much more intriguing.

Joanie came to a halt and roved her gaze over the barren street. The restaurant's windows were blown out and shattered, and the ancient paint was peeling from the sides. That hadn't changed in the past years.

Well, there was only one way to see if anyone was here.

Inhaling sharply, she cupped a hand over her mouth and shouted, "Grayditch!"

Mouse squeaked behind her, but she ignored it. The vault rat didn't matter at the moment. Joanie wanted to know what had happened. Getting to Rivet City was her top priority, but she could spend a few minutes to find out. A whole settlement of people didn't just vanish for no reason. They were killed.

Her call echoed off the skeletal buildings surrounding them like steel and concrete coffins. Only seconds after it faded away, there was a sharp metallic bang from nearby. Joanie's sharp eyes came to a rest on the Pulowski Preservation Shelter squatting calmly beside the diner. With a scowl, she marched toward it, her pet mouse scuttling up beside her.

"Wh-What is th-th-that?" she stammered quietly, tentatively stretching out a little, perfectly white finger to poke the side of the shelter. Joanie's mouth twisted into a wry smirk as Mouse jumped back, gasping. Well, the stupid girl would never learn that the sun heated metal if she didn't touch a hot preservation shelter for herself.

"Don't touch," she said belatedly, grinning sadistically at Mouse. Her eyes were wide behind her dark glasses, and she shuffled back, cradling her hurt finger close to her chest. Seeing the hurt, Joanie almost felt a little bad that she had snapped at the girl. "It's a Pulowski Preservation Shelter," she explained curtly. "Fallout shelter. Didn't work worth shit when the bombs fell, though."

She turned to the shelter and slammed the toe of her boot into the side. The resounding crash was deafening. "Open up!" she yelled. Something shuffled inside the shelter, and she quickly dropped the assault rifle to its perfect, comfortable position on her shoulder, barrel aimed head-level at the door.

The door hissed as it eased into its circular wall. Joanie blinked, surprised, then quickly lowered the aim of her gun to match the height of the young boy standing in the one-man shelter in front of them.

Her grip on the trigger almost faltered. "Bryan?"

The boy jerked back, shocked. His shoulder slammed into the heated wall of the shelter and he called in pain, grabbing his arm as he hopped out. "Ouch! Holy. Joanie? What're you doing here?"

She lowered her gun completely and backed off. "Going to Rivet City. What in the fuck happened here?"

Bryan ruffled his short, messy hair and ventured a step out of the protection of the shelter. "Hiding. I don't want to be killed too."

Joanie scowled and looked around again. Nothing else had responded to her earlier shout. Bryan was the last one left. That wasn't raider work at all. They would have taken him, if not killed him outright, and sold him to the fuckers in Paradise Falls, or brought him home to Evergreen Mills. "What killed 'em?"

He stared down at the ground rather pathetically. "Ants, I think. That's what it seemed like. I don't really know what happened."

"Hm." Joanie turned away and started to clomp back toward the main road to DC. There was a gasp and the flutter of scurrying feet behind her. Soon, her pet was back at her side.

"Wh-Why d-d-don't you h-help-p h-him?" she asked quietly. Joanie could hear Bryan weeping softly back at his preservation shelter. That had probably set the soft-hearted vault dweller right off.

"Why should I?" Joanie stopped, her boots sending several small rocks down a slope to clatter loudly against the sudden, broken asphalt. She turned, snapping her Chinese assault rifle back into place. Mouse was staring at her, the glasses slipping down her nose to show off the pretty blue eyes. "What do I owe the fuckers here? They got themselves killed by a group of fucking ants? Bullshit I need to help. I never liked the Wilks anyways."

"If it h-h-hadn't b-been ant-ts, w-would y-you have h-helped h-him?"

The question made Joanie keep from marching further from Grayditch. She frowned at her companion, who was looking dirt- and tearstained in the morning sun. Her pale blonde hair was ruffled and knotted in the bun at the back of her head. She looked like she had been run over, to be honest.

"No," she retorted hotly. Why would it matter? She only wanted to know what'd killed Grayditch. "Why should I? They're not my fucking problem, not if those cocksuckers got themselves killed by a bunch of _ants_. Even if they didn't. My shit? No. I just need to get to Rivet City."

Joanie turned away and started back to the road. No raiders. No slavers. Fucking ants. Not even that crazy, paranoid bastard William Brandice could stop from being killed.

Weak.

The whole lot of them.

Shaking her head as Mouse stuttered something behind her, she scowled into the bright distance and muttered, "Idiot shitheads."

—

Mouse gawped after Joanie for several long beats before hurrying after her, cringing as the muffled pain from the previous day began to show itself. She was so out of shape. How she ever kept from getting morbidly obese in the vault, she didn't know. Joanie showed no signs of feeling tired or sore, not ever. And here she was, one minute after leaving the little boy crying over his dead family, already hurting.

But how could Joanie be such a heartless, cruel woman? That poor boy. He was all alone in a big, harsh world, and all he needed was a little help.

Mouse pouted as she followed Joanie, determined to keep from looking back at Grayditch, where little Bryan was undoubtedly huddled back up in his Pul-whatever Preservation Shelter, sobbing at what he'd lost.

Hm. Joanie was just as bad as the Tunnel Snakes.

Stupid Butch DeLoria and his gang of bullies. Joanie Beck would fit in perfectly with them. Once Mouse found her father and brought him home to Vault 101, she'd suggest that they recruit the ruthless, gun-toting woman.

Soon, they were back on the road with Grayditch receding into the distance behind them. Mouse frequently glanced back over her shoulder, wishing she could have done more to convince Joanie to help the boy. Even if it meant setting him up somewhere safe, or just getting vengeance on whatever killed his family. Not for the first time, Mouse desperately wished she had more of a backbone—wished she wasn't so submissive and passive.

Shards of broken glass and rocks crackled and crunched under their feet as they followed the broken road toward DC. It felt like they were so close—Mouse could already hear the rushing of the Potomac River, the smell of which already eased her parched and cracking lips—but she knew it would take more than an afternoon's walk to get there, to Three Dog.

Mouse frowned as she picked up the pace; Joanie was so much faster than her, and she kept falling behind. She blamed it on the heat of the day, combined with a heavy altered vault suit, and her empty-feeling pack of supplies. And being unused to it. Joanie carried the weight of countless hidden weapons and supplies, but she walked with confidence. She had been born to the Wasteland.

Nobody had told her who Three Dog really was, yet, or why he could help her. Abri Ryder had simply said to go to DC and find Three Dog. Joanie had merely agreed to take her to DC, since it was on the way to—what was it?—Rivet City.

She bit her chapped lip to keep from gasping in exhaustion, and lifted a hand to wipe the sweat off her brow. Her hand came back filthy and damp. Oh, she had to look a wreck. Maybe Joanie would spare a few seconds to wash off in the river.

Joanie suddenly picked up speed. Her weapons rattled as she jogged down the road; her ridiculously short hair was slicked back over her head and glistening in the orange sun as she moved out from underneath a shadow. Mouse followed, her heart beating erratically; what if something had seen them!

Yanking off a huge weapon with a cylindrical plastic object on the top, Joanie skidded to a halt, causing dust to blow up all around her. Mouse crouched behind a rock nearby, heart thumping against her ribs and legs and lungs burning, but she merely watched, waiting for Joanie to let them continue.

She could hear the river perfectly. She had no idea how long they'd been walking, but she knew they were close. So close.

Watching with bated breath, she saw Joanie rest the long, thin barrel of the gun on a rock in front of her. She hunched her shoulders and set her cheek near the back end of the plastic tube, as if she was looking through it. After several tense moments, a small smirk stretched across her dark, perspiration-beaded face. Cursing delightedly below her breath, she reached up and slowly adjusted something on the tube. Whatever she saw, it had to be good. She grinned.

Joanie lowered the weapon and cursed only a little louder, "Fucking don't have any goddamn bullets."

Mouse swallowed heavily and shuffled forward a little bit. She peeked over her rock, but only saw a slope to the river, the river itself, and the skeleton city on the other side. "Wh-Wh-What is it-t?" Embarrassed, she felt her face flush behind her sunburn, but she knew Joanie didn't care if she blushed. She'd make fun of the stutter if she so pleased, and Mouse doubted anyone had ever said no to her before and lived to tell about it.

The woman grinned happily and put the gun back where she had taken it. "Fucking raiders. All over the fucking place. Heh, this is the shit I fucking live for. You ready, kid?" She glanced at Mouse, her thick eyebrows raised expectantly.

Mouse twitched uncomfortably. She was aching, overheated, and extremely hungry. She doubted she was ready for anything but some vault-issued preservatives, in a soft vault cot with a climate-controlled vault environment.

"F-For wh-what?" she whispered, scared at what could _possibly _make Joanie smile.

Joanie pointed across the river. "Raiders. We gotta get to that goddamn metro station, but they're fucking mobbing the place. So you know what we gotta do, Mousey?"

Mouse stared at her, terrified for the answer. She didn't know what raiders were, but she had a feeling it was bad.

"We gotta go on a goddamn fucking killing spree." She shuddered happily and grinned as she looked back over the river. "This is my kinda day."

Mouse looked at her little ten mill gun, and remembered how the security guards at the vault had shot at her, leaving her crying and scared. She had shot back once or twice—but hit nothing. Even if she had the aim and practice for it—the BB gun for her tenth birthday hadn't been used all that much—she couldn't have shot and hurt people she had grown up with. People whose children she went to school with. Her father's coworkers.

Joanie looked her over with those condescending dark eyes. "Well, maybe _you _ain't going on no fucking spree. You don't look like you could hurt anymore than a shit-eating fly. So here's the plan: I'm going to take that bridge over there." She waved a hand to point to another road that branched off and flew over a long bridge in a state of extreme disrepair. Several people-shaped figures patrolled the top, and the occasional barking laugh. "I'm going to fucking take those shitheads out. You'll just get yourself fucking killed if you come, no doubt."

Mouse nodded. She really couldn't disagree with that exquisitely articulate statement.

Joanie was thoughtfully silent for a moment, then she outstretched her filthy hand and took Mouse's bag from her shoulder.

Unable to resist, she merely stared pitifully at Joanie. What was the woman doing? That was her bag! It was one of the last things she had from home.

Joanie hooked it around her, keeping it clear of the many guns she bore. "I'd say that we could just fucking swim, but I got way too much shit for that. And you got this. Gimme your gun."

Mouse bit her lip, ignoring the fiery pain of the cracked skin, and unclipped her gun from her waist. She handed it shakily to her companion, and watched as Joanie simply tossed it into the vault bag.

"Kid, you're going across the river."

"What!" Moments after her shock passed, Mouse realized she hadn't stuttered at all, and she clapped her hands over her mouth. It made her sunburn ache, but she couldn't help it. _She hadn't stuttered_. Maybe Joanie should just spew nonsense all the time.

Joanie stared at her with a slight frown. She grunted and shook her head. "Nice. But you fucking heard me. You got ears that work perfect, dumbass."

Mouse grimaced and stared across the river. Sure, it'd be nice to cool off; sure, it'd be nice to ease her sunburn and chapped lips; sure, it'd be nice to have water for the first time in days; and sure, it'd be nice to not have to deal with these raider creatures Joanie mentioned.

"I-Insane," she mumbled, looking down at her hands so she didn't have to look at the vast expanse of muddy grey water that would surely be her death.

Joanie cackled and scrubbed a hand through her hair. "I'm crazy. People've said it before. But it keeps me a-fucking-live, kid. Now you'll do as I fucking say, 'less you want me to leave you here or you want to fucking drown in that shit."

Mouse nodded reluctantly. She appeared to have no choice.

"It's not that fucking deep here. See that? Buildings fell. Made it all fucking shallow and shit. You'll probably be able to fucking touch the ground the entire fucking way across. Only thing you gotta look out for is goddamn mirelurks, but these raiders probably took care of the fuckers already." Joanie grunted and smirked. "Trust me. I've done it before."

Mouse's eyes widened behind her sunglasses. Trust her? Not likely.

"Don't flail too fucking much, or they'll see you. And raiders got some good ass fucking snipers, so look out for that." Joanie stood and unclipped her shotgun. "I'll see you on the other side, kid." With that, she jogged off toward the bridge—her dry, safe passage across the Potomac.

Mouse sighed and looked back at the river. She had to cross that?

She had never swum before.

Ever.

Maybe Joanie didn't take into account the fact that, having lived in a vault all her life, Mouse never would have found the chance to swim. Especially not across a river.

There was no way around it. If she followed Joanie, she'd probably get shot, either by her companion or the raiders. She figured she'd rather drown than be shot.

Mouse poked out from behind her rock and peered up at the bridge. Joanie was sneaking up to it, trying to avoid notice of the raiders. Well, that was all fine and dandy, but how would they react when they saw Mouse floundering and flailing in the river?

She had to hope that Joanie's distraction would be good enough.

With that less-than-promising thought, she inched toward the river.

The smell of water was overwhelming as she got close. Rotted and irradiated, it was really quite foul and disgusting. Things floated down it that she didn't even want to imagine. But it was water. She was dying of thirst, and her lips were cracked and dry.

Mouse toed toward it. As soon as her boot touched the lapping shore, her Pip-Boy began emitting a loud crackling noise. She jumped, shocked, and stared at it as the noise continued uninterrupted.

"What…?" she murmured, and tapped her finger on the screen. She had heard it make that noise only once before: when she fell in the pond of water to hide from a radroach on her way to Megaton. She hadn't known what it meant then, and she certainly didn't know now. She had a feeling it had to do with water.

The crackling alarmed her, sure. She was sure Joanie could wait a bit to kill all the raiders while she discovered what was wrong with her Pip-Boy. It was her lifeline—everything she needed to survive was in that little mechanical device. She had despised it when she first got it, and resented her father and the Overseer for forcing it upon her, but she had come to rely on it completely. When she had gotten sick as a child, it had showed how her health was deteriorating, so her father knew exactly what to do to help her. It helped her around the vault after she got lost. It let her listen to the vault radio.

She needed it.

If it was breaking, she thought she might die.

Looking at the water below her, she winced. What if it wasn't waterproof?

Wait, no, she already knew it would be fine. If not from the pond/radroach incident, because Amata had doused her in water as a prank when they were fifteen. And how they had been walking innocently through the halls of the vault at eleven, and Butch DeLoria and his Tunnel Snakes had bombarded them with rubber balls full of water.

No, it would be fine, she decided, and took another step into the water. Her ankles were soaked. At least her wet clothes would keep her cool through the day.

Reluctantly, Mouse waded farther into the river. Gentle currents pulled at her loose pants as she walked in, trying weakly to tug her downstream. She hoped the currents wouldn't be strong enough to sweep her away.

The sand and rocks beneath her boots suddenly vanished, and she squinted through the murk to see that she was standing on—a wall. Concrete. Just as Joanie had said, buildings had fallen and made the river passable. And she was only up to her thighs. Maybe this would be easier than she thought.

As she made her way farther into the river, her Pip-Boy continued to buzz incessantly. It turned swiftly into background noise; after a few minutes, she didn't even notice it.

What she did notice was how pleasant the water was against her superheated skin. It pulled her filthy clothes away from her body and washed off the dirt and sweat, leaving her feeling the cleanest she had since before she left the vault.

At waist-height, her boot slipped into a crack and she fell shoulder-deep into the water. Gasping and spluttering, she straightened and moved back onto the underwater wall. Maybe this wouldn't be easy.

Well, she would just be more careful. As she toed along the wall, hoping it wasn't about to give out or vanish beneath her, she tried to distract herself from what she was doing. Because really, when she thought about it, it was just absolutely crazy.

Here she was: nineteen year old vault dweller of Vault 101, never before left home, fording an irradiated river to reach a man called Three Dog in the ruins of DC, so she could find her escaped father and bring him home, to live happily ever after underground.

Mouse snorted. It was stupid.

She hesitated for a moment, considering giving up and going back to Vault 101, defeated. She wasn't even halfway across the river yet, and it would only take a day to get back to Megaton. She didn't know what would greet her back home, but surely Amata could argue with her father to let Mouse back in. After all, Mouse was innocent: she didn't know why her father left and she didn't know where he had gone. She had been unlawfully cast out of her home.

Taking another cautious step, she dismissed the idea. The Overseer would never let her back in. Never. She was a Wastelander now.

The thought of that made Mouse sputter and almost cry. She didn't belong to the vault anymore. She would never see Amata again.

Hell, she'd even take Butch. She was lonesome without her fellow vault dwellers nearby. All she had was an angry, weapon-laden woman with a penchant for swearing.

She waded further into the water, and the wall abruptly ended beneath her. She sank quite suddenly, nearly submerging her head, but she struggling for a moment, flailing her arms and legs, and moved enough to find what felt like a car beneath her. Mouse decided not to question it as she straightened and stood, chest-deep in the water. Her chin and hair dripped, and her Pip-Boy was still making that ridiculous sound.

Glancing up at the bridge, she pushed the glasses up on her nose to see Joanie and the raiders engaging in some kind of firefight. They were too far away to be heard; Mouse had inadvertently gone a little farther down the river.

Pulling against the current, she continued to walk. The water got deeper and deeper as she went, but as Joanie had said, there was enough debris on the bottom to help her across the way.

The clicking of her Pip-Boy was really starting to piss her off. Mouse paused, perched precariously on a rock underwater, and began flipping through the switches of her wristband. She stopped when she came to her radiation level.

It was at 150—and rising.

Well, she thought, as she held up the Pip-Boy to her ear. The crackling matched how the radiation level was going up. She didn't know what it meant, but at least she knew that her wristband wasn't breaking or something.

A small green figure in the corner of her Pip-Boy screen said _+1 Rads/Sec_, but she didn't know what it meant. Nobody had told her what a rad was. She thought she had heard it repeated over the intercom in Vault 101 sometimes, but really, what child pays attention to the Overseer's PA?

As she ventured across the Potomac, she watched Joanie safely cross the bridge and begin gunning down the raiders grouped around what she had called a 'metro station'.

By the time Mouse crawled out of the river, soaked through and feeling a strange mixture of clean, safe, light-headed and sickly, Joanie was walking down to the beach, blood-spattered but grinning proudly.

"You made it. Good." Joanie tossed the vault bag on the ground in front of Mouse. "Got you a forty-four. Way fucking better than your ten mill. Use it. Now come on. We gotta fucking get out of here before more of those cocksuckers show up."

Mouse continued to sit on a rock on the edge of the river for several moments longer. Joanie might be able to keep going, but Mouse had just forded a river despite being unable to swim. She thought she deserved a break. Her chest was heaving, but at least she wasn't dehydrated and feeling like a dried out husk anymore. That was promising.

Joanie walked up the slope to the square, then stopped and stared down at Mouse. "Are you coming or not, dumbass? I don't got all fucking day!"

Mouse groaned and climbed tiredly to her feet. She stooped to pick up her bag, then trudged after Joanie, her boots and vault suit squelching wetly as she walked.

When they reached the paved square, she waited at the top of a set of stairs as Joanie hopped down to a metal chain gate and cautiously opened it. Despite her exhaustion, her aches, and her hunger, she felt a small thrill of delight at the below-ground door.

They were going back underground.

Mouse was practically home.


	5. As normal as blueberry pie

"Amanda," the doctor said firmly. He ran a hand over his short, greying hair, and Abri couldn't take his eyes off the clunky, metal gadget stuck to his wrist. "That's my daughter's name."

"I met an Amanda," Abri said, managing to avert his gaze back to the doctor's face when he lowered his arm, cutting off view of the wristband. "She was in Megaton."

James snorted and shook his head. "No. That can't be. My Amanda is safely at home in… well, at home," he murmured sadly. "She is not in Megaton."

Abri sighed, wishing the stubborn man would just accept that he had met his daughter. "She's probably not anymore. She's probably on her way _here_, to find you," he insisted. He was painfully aware that Three Dog was watching them interestedly, not even trying to hide his curiosity. "I swear I'm not lying to you, James."

"But it can't be! She can't have left. She must stay at home. That's where she's safe." Exasperated, James turned away and covered his face with his hands. Once again, Abri found himself staring at the thing—the thing she had called a Pip-Boy 3000.

"Uh, I'm sorry to interrupt, fellas," Three Dog said hesitantly, "but I got a show to do. I can't have you arguing on air."

Abri glanced toward the radio host and felt a heavy sigh escape him. "Fine. But I swear to you, James, your daughter is out there, looking for you." He looked upward, at the clock Three Dog kept hanging on the wall in his studio. It was time for him to go.

James shook his head again. "If this woman you met is coming here, tell her to go to Rivet City. That's where I'll be. I'll judge whether it's my daughter."

His voice was harsh and condescending. Suddenly angry, Abri said, "She _is _your daughter! And James, she's _not in the vault_."

But James left, slamming the studio door behind him before he could listen to what Abri had to say.

Three Dog sat behind his soundboard, fiddling with a button. "Sorry, Abri," he muttered, shaking his head. "If that was me, I wouldn't want to believe my kid left the safety of a vault to find me either."

Abri scowled up at the clock again. "I know. But I met his daughter. I swear it."

Three Dog watched where Abri was looking. "Get outta here, boy," he urged. "You have to get going. Tell you what: if she comes here, I'll tell her where to find the two of you."

Abri managed a smile. "Okay. But I might be back by then."

Setting headphones over his ears, Three Dog said, "Here's to hoping you are. Then you can help her find her father."

Abri remained a moment longer, as the ancient music finished playing and Three Dog began his monologue into the microphone. The man really had a way of capturing attention and keeping it there. If Abri had a Pip-Boy, he'd always be tuned into Galaxy News Radio.

Three Dog's eyes flicked toward Abri as he talked, and Abri knew it was directed at him when the host said, "Continue to fight the Good Fight."

Taking that as his cue, Abri turned and left.

—

Mouse screamed and turned abruptly, sprinting past Joanie to hide behind the natural barrier of a wall. The thing behind her shrieked and padded toward them, but it was cut off violently as Joanie pulled the trigger of her combat shotgun and let loose a barrage of lead into its chest. Mouse peeked out from behind the wall and wished she hadn't—she watched its chest blow open and blood spray from the rotted flesh as it toppled to the cold, concrete floor of the subway tunnels.

"Wh-Wh-Wh-What w-was th-that?" she asked shrilly. The thing looked like Gob the ghoul from Megaton's bar, but it was much more deteriorated and emaciated, with globs of flesh dangling from skeletal arms and sunken chest. Blood pooled around on the floor, and Mouse watched, whey-faced, as Joanie calmly walked up to it and began digging through the tattered pants around its waist.

"Feral ghoul," she replied calmly, coming up with several bottle caps. She tucked them into a pocket of her armour and glanced back at Mouse. The look on her dark face was absolutely evil. "You're chicken shit, aren't you?"

Mouse swallowed a painful lump in her throat and reluctantly scooted out from behind the pock-marked wall. They had been in the metro all afternoon, marching stealthily through winding tunnels and pathways, and they had come across several dozen of these rotted creatures. But they had always been able to take them out from afar—Joanie always used what she called a Chinese assault rifle to easily shoot the things and move on.

But this time, the monster had snuck up on _them_.

Despite just wanting to keep quiet and move along, Mouse managed to stammer, "A-Are w-we alm-most out?"

"Of the metro? Fuck yes." Joanie kicked the corpse of the feral ghoul into the subway line and continued walking. Her boots echoed off the narrow, collapsing walls. Mouse, shivering, hurried up to walk beside her. "We're nearly out, then we'll be right next to GNR fucking Plaza." Joanie crouched and shuffled through the long-rotted corpse of a human being before coming up with nothing. She looked at Mouse, trailing beside her like a puppy, and said, "You're leaving as soon as we get to DC, right? 'Cause I can't have someone fucking following me everywhere."

Mouse lowered her gaze, suddenly self-conscious that Joanie was giving her such a stern look. "I n-need t-to g-get to Th-Three D-Dog."

"Course you do," Joanie grumbled. Her gun clicked as she lifted it to peer down the sights and check for more feral ghouls. Finding none, she marched onward, but stumbled somewhat over a lip in the ground that Mouse could see perfectly. Mouse was too timid and polite to gloat; she could see in the dark subway much better than tough-as-nails Joanie Beck. She figured she could turn on her Pip-Boy light to help out her companion, but she was too afraid Joanie might bite her head off if she tried. She was content watching Joanie trip on easily avoidable things that Mouse could see just fine.

Other than the terrifying feral ghouls, Mouse found the metro quite pleasant. Things creaked and dripped and made frightening noises, but it was cool underground, with easy-on-the-eyes darkness, no sun to scorch her tender skin, and it wasn't soaking up the water still in her jumpsuit, so she was still damp and pleasantly cool. It was so much better than the arid Wasteland.

If she could just pretend the ghouls were Tunnel Snakes, she'd be home.

Joanie elbowed open a door and began to creep up a staircase. Mouse followed, learning that she couldn't drag her feet as she always did. Joanie always picked up her feet and never ever made any noise when she walked. Mice were supposed to be quiet, right? Mouse crept up the stairs behind Joanie as quietly as she could bear.

As they reached the top and began walking down a hallway, something screamed in the distance. The guttural noise echoed off the walls and made Mouse's head hurt, but she quickly recognized the sound as the noises made by the feral ghouls.

Joanie led the way to a wider tunnel, and Mouse thought it looked similar to the entrance to the metro. They were almost out! And they had avoided the worst of the ghouls, too!

A light grew at the end of the tunnel, and Mouse grinned when she saw the chain link fence at the end. There it was. Freedom.

Joanie picked up the pace, almost jogging until they reached the gate. She started to unlock it, picking at it with a contraption she took from one of her pockets. Mouse waited patiently behind her, looking around the grey, cavernous entrance, until she noticed a square object nearby, glowing and flickering with dying power. Curious, she walked up to it. It was red and quite, quite scratched and dusty, with the words _Nuka-Cola _flashing above a coin slot.

"That's where bottle caps come from," she whispered to herself, proud she had known that. She bent and peered into the bottle dispenser, but found nothing.

The machine suddenly rattled and Mouse gasped, jumping back. It had come to life!

Judging by the laughter nearby, that was exactly the reaction Joanie had been looking for. She kicked the machine again and something rattled inside. "You're so easily spooked," she cackled, bending and scooping out the bottles that had fallen from their roosts inside. Tossing one to Mouse, she said, "Keep the cap. Let's get the fuck outta here."

Twisting off the cap, Mouse sniffed at the dark liquid in the bottle as she followed Joanie out the gate. The dim light of late afternoon glowed down on them, and Mouse gasped as they ascended the stairs to the main level of the street. They were surrounded utterly by dilapidated buildings, all shattered glass and broken columns. Debris—cars, motorcycles, baby carriages, benches, bits of buildings—littered the area, and all was perfectly still save for the occasional garbage product fluttering across the ground, blown by the wind.

The sight of the graveyard city made gooseflesh ripple down Mouse's damp arms.

Mouse reluctantly followed Joanie. They walked toward a building with the roof blown off, passing a huge, manlike corpse along the way. It was freshly dead; perfectly intact save for still-oozing bullet holes, its flesh was a strange yellow colour, and it bore a toothy scowl even in death.

"Super mutant," Joanie whispered helpfully, and they continued on their way. The area was terrifyingly silent and deserted.

They passed through a blown-out hole in a wall. Mouse bit her lip as she followed Joanie past the debris. There were desks and papers and filing cabinets everywhere—were they in a school? She shuddered, reminded of the schoolroom in Vault 101, and tried to keep her eyes on her destination alone.

Two more yellow corpses were sprawled on the ground until they turned a corner and found life.

They were facing a large open area with a tall, intact building on the other side. There was an enormous body hunched in the centre, yellow like its smaller versions, but much worse. It reeked of new death and destruction as they approached it. Standing nearby was a tall figure in strange, bulky metal armour.

The helmet turned toward them as they crunched into the plaza. The figure hefted a powerful-looking rifle and pointed it at them, and both Mouse and Joanie had the sense to stop moving.

"Halt! Who goes there?" It was a man; a perfectly normal human man, judging by the voice.

"Joanie Beck!" she called, holding up her hands calmly.

Mouse did the same. "M-M-Mouse," she stammered, only a little quieter than Joanie's shout.

The man strode up to them. Behind him, Mouse could see several more people milling about in the strange, voice-altering armour, and one man talking with them, wearing nothing but garments that looked like they were made out of leather.

"Did you say Mouse?" the armoured man asked incredulously. "Sarah! Come here a sec!"

One of the figures, a woman with blonde hair who wasn't wearing a helmet, marched curiously over. "What is it?" she demanded roughly.

The man questioning them waved a gloved hand toward Mouse. "She says her name is Mouse. Can you believe that?"

The woman, Sarah, raised her eyebrows. "Mouse? Gotcha. And who are you?"

"Joanie Beck."

"Hm. Why are you here?"

"She wants to meet Three Dog."

"Why?"

Joanie shrugged, so Sarah turned her sharp eyes on Mouse. Terrified, she merely stared back.

"Can't answer for yourself?"

Mouse shook her head, and Sarah seemed to slouch. "Fine. You can see Three Dog, now that we've secured the area. I'm Sentinel Sarah Lyons of Lyons' Pride."

Joanie shifted uncomfortably at Mouse's side. "Sentinel?" she repeated. Her voice was unsure, for the first time since Mouse had met her.

Lyons looked over at her. "Yeah. This is the Lyons' Pride contingent of the DC Brotherhood of Steel outpost."

Joanie blanched. "Oh. I'll see you around, Mouse—"

"Mouse?"

Joanie looked irritated that she had been interrupted in her escape, but the shout had been too familiar to miss. Mouse looked up, startled, to see the man in leather walking toward them, his jaw dropped. With the messy black hair, stubble-dotted chin and heavy-rimmed glasses, there was really only one person it could be.

Her jaw dropped. "A-Abri?"

He stopped in front of her, beaming. "Oh, wow. This is my lucky day."

"Wh-Why?" She peered nervously at him.

"I was just talking to your father a few hours ago!" he exclaimed. He grabbed her shoulders in his excitement and she gawked at him. Her father? "He showed up here to talk to Three Dog, and I got here last night, so we were talking. He's heading to Rivet City. He only left this morning. I was supposed to go to Reilly's place, but I got distracted, and I'm so glad I did—"

"Abraham Ryder," Joanie hissed behind Mouse. Abri stopped babbling and his hazel eyes flicked over Mouse's shoulder. His delighted expression instantly flattened upon seeing her.

"Joan Beck."

Mouse squeaked as a strong hand suddenly grabbed her arm and yanked her back. She stumbled into Joanie, but the woman held her there, and she decided struggling to get out would only make things worse. Abri was glaring over his spectacles at the dark woman holding Mouse. She wondered why.

"I thought you were dead," Joanie crooned. "I guess you got out."

"Four years ago," he shot back. His hand was twitching at his side, where a sidearm waited. "Let go of her."

Mouse shuddered as she felt Joanie's hand tighten on her arm. "Why should I? I fucking got her all the way from Megaton to here. She's under my fucking protection."

"Protection? You'll just take her to Paradise Falls."

"Have you been living under a fucking rock, shithead?" Joanie growled darkly. "I'm done with that."

Something passed over Abri's good-natured face. "Did Tyler betray you again?"

Mouse felt Joanie's anger rumble through her. "Tyler is fucking dead!" Joanie shouted. All was quiet for a moment, save her voice bouncing off the enclosing walls. "He's rotting at the bottom of the fucking river! Him and Sladen both!"

Abri shook his head. "I told you. I _told _you he would betray you. And you can't befriend a Talon merc."

Sentinel Lyons pushed forward. "What's going on here?" she demanded, looking between the two.

Abri slouched and pointed at Joanie. "She's a raider."

Mouse squeaked; Joanie was pinching her arm so hard, she was beginning to lose feeling. "I'm not anymore," she hissed.

To her horror, Lyons' eyes moved to Mouse, expecting an explanation. Joanie reluctantly released her, and she teetered in the neutral area between the two. "Um… I-I m-met Ab-bri in M-M-Megaton, th-then J-Joanie at a S-Super D-Duper M-Mart. Sh-She off-fered t-to t-take m-me to D-DC. Th-That's all I kn-know."

"Did she hurt you at all?" Abri asked gently.

Mouse shook her head.

"I kept her alive, Ryder," Joanie snarled. "She would've fucking died if not for me."

Abri sighed heavily. "It doesn't matter anymore. I'm taking her to Rivet City to see her father. She doesn't have to deal with you anymore."

Joanie scoffed loudly. "Yeah? You just fucking said that you need to go to Reilly's. That's way out of the fucking way. I was _already _headed for Rivet fucking City. I'm taking her."

All eyes turned to Mouse.

She gulped. Shuffling awkwardly, she looked at the ground and stammered, "C-Can I t-talk to Th-Three D-Dog?"

"Of course." Abri lightly touched her arm, and she followed him, staring at the bloodstained ground, across the plaza to the unharmed building. Sentinel Lyons and Joanie followed. The rest of the armoured men continued to patrol the area.

After getting clearance from an intercom, they entered the building. It was cool and dark, and more of the men and women in the strange armour wandered around, all hefting heavy guns. Mouse was shuffled up some stairs, through some doors, past some more armoured men, until they reached a funny room that looked like the sound studio she had seen in the vault, where they announced the PA messages.

A funny-dressed man was sprawled in a chair near the back wall, watching the entourage file in with a look of surprise on his dark-skinned face.

"Abri? I thought you left."

"I was going to; the Brotherhood distracted me a bit." Abri walked into the room and gestured to the man. "Mouse, this is Three Dog." Louder, he added, "Three Dog, this is James' daughter, Amanda. Everyone calls her Mouse."

The black man stood and held out a hand. Mouse reluctantly scuffled forward and shook it. "Nice to meet ya, Mousey. I'm Three Dog, host of Galaxy News Radio." He let go of her hand and looked over her shoulder. "So you were right all along, Abri. Maybe if you'd mentioned her particular nickname, or mentioned the vault earlier…"

"I know. But we know where James is going; we can catch him up so they can be together again." Abri's voice was smiling. "You can help, Three Dog."

The man laughed. It was the happiest sound Mouse thought she had ever heard. "Sure I can. I bet James listens to the Good Fight. Kid, come on over here."

Mouse reluctantly scuttled over to Three Dog's side. He smiled absently and led her through a door into another room. Sitting her on a wooden chair, he leaned against the wall opposite her and regarded her silently for a moment.

"Mind if I ask you some things, Mousey?"

Mouse shook her head.

"I can help you find your dad. Hell, I'm good buds with him. He was just here. And even if he doesn't listen to GNR, people who do will tell him about you so it's easier to find him. So, your name is Amanda, but people call you Mouse."

She nodded.

"Why?"

"G-Guess."

Three Dog laughed. "Okay, okay, I got it. You're shy. So you're from Vault One-oh-One, and you left to find your dad. Travelled across the Wasteland."

Three Dog started to ask her questions about how she had come to be in DC. After stuttering through the story, he leaned back and smiled somewhat.

"Well, good. Now I can tell people what to look for. So, just for curiosity's sake—why'd you say no to Abri and agree to go with Joanie? She's a bitch."

Mouse rolled her eyes. She _knew _Joanie was a bitch. "I-I-I onl-ly r-realized I-I'd n-need h-help once J-Joanie offered. I kn-know I sh-should've t-taken A-Abri's h-help." She looked down at her lap, feeling her face flush. Christ, she hated how she blushed and how she stuttered. It wasn't fair.

In the room next to them, she could hear Sentinel Lyons talking to Abri, but Joanie was suspiciously silent. She wasn't gone—she could be heard muttering to herself about the equipment in the studio every once in a while—but she was pointedly keeping out of conversation that involved Abri.

"H-How—?" Mouse started to ask after listening in for a moment.

"Abri and Joanie? Heh, well. Abri's told me this story one too many times, kid. I could recite it perfectly." Three Dog rolled his shoulders tiredly and sighed, staring up at the ceiling. "How old did you say you were? Nineteen? Well, Abri's only twenty-two. Lady Beck out there, she's in her mid-thirties, so she's a bit older. When Abri was only four and she was, what, seventeen?—well, let's just say, she's got herself involved in the wrong crowd. Became a raider at a young age. Don't know why. So to prove her loyalty, she had to kill a kid in Girdershade. Population was a lot bigger back then. Her raider buddies were waiting. So she knocked the kid out. She couldn't do it. After all, he'd just watched his whole family and neighbours get slaughtered by raiders. They told her if she wouldn't kill him, she had to do the best alternative."

Mouse gawked at him, wide-eyed. She never would have guessed before that Joanie and Abri had known each other, but had she really killed his family when he was four? And she had been younger than Mouse at the time.

"Next best thing: Selling him to the slavers of Paradise Falls. So she did. She sold him for six hundred caps because he was young, healthy, and already a frigging genius with tech. He was a slave until he was eighteen; that was when he heard of the Temple of the Union, killed his master and found them in Abraham Lincoln's Memorial here in DC. They protect runaway slaves. He's been wandering around ever since, but mostly here or in Megaton. And he hadn't seen the girl who'd sold him since he was fifteen, when his boss and master met up with her band of raiders." Three Dog harrumphed and shook his head sadly. "He's the most normal guy I've ever met. Nicest, too. He goes out of his way to help people. That's why he offered you help in Megaton, kid. Not 'cause he's some creep, but because he's been a slave. He's been lost and alone. He knows what it's like to lose a family."

Mouse rubbed her eyes, determined to keep from crying. She should have accepted his offer of help. She shouldn't have gone off on her own and met Joanie.

But Joanie hadn't tried at all to steer her to the slavers. Granted, she didn't know where Paradise Falls was, but hadn't Joanie taken her exactly where she wanted to go?

"J-Joanie s-said sh-she's n-not a r-r-raider anym-more," she pointed out, very quietly.

"I don't doubt it. You said she was fighting somebody when you met her, and that she killed all those raiders crossing the Potomac. They were no doubt raiders in the Super Duper Mart. And if she still was a raider, they would've let her pass. I don't even want to know what she did to get kicked out—or if she left voluntarily, why she suddenly grew a heart. I wouldn't trust her as far as I can throw her. But then, I haven't known her more than five minutes. I only hate her 'cause of what Abri's told me."

Mouse sighed heavily as she heard Sentinel Lyons laugh at something Abri said. "Who d-do I…?"

"I'd say if you had a choice, go with Abri to find your daddy." Three Dog ran his hand over the bandanna on his head. Sighing, he moved away from the wall and stretched leisurely. "But Joanie's got too much pride. So does he. They're going to kill each other to see who comes out on top to get the honours to take you, or they're both going to stick around. It's not going to be nice, Mousey, but you seem to need all the protection you can get. Joanie's tough if she's been a raider, and nobody knows the Wasteland better than Abri."

There was a knock on the door, and Abri's head poked in a second later. "Uh, Three Dog, we ran out of records to play, and Sarah and I did a guest spot on your show, but we need you back."

Three Dog's jaw must have hurt when it hit the floor. "You _what?_ You went on the air? Oh, Abri Ryder, I'm going to kill you!" He shoved a giggling Abri from the room, then glanced back at Mouse. "Hope you find your dad soon, kid. Good luck with those two." With that, he marched from the room, shouting at Abri and Sentinel Lyons about touching his equipment. The two were both laughing hysterically, apparently finding something absolutely hilarious.

Mouse stood and crept to the door, looking out to see the stoic blonde Brotherhood of Steel sentinel doubled over and red-faced with laughter, and Abri beside her, clutching his middle as he silently laughed.

Three Dog was whey-faced as he stood beside his precious recording equipment.

There was a sudden howl from the speakers as he played back what they had said.

"_This is Sentinel Sarah Lyons of Lyons' Pride!_" Sarah's voice, electronically amplified, burst suddenly into the room.

"_And this is Abri! Coming to you li-ive from my fortified bunker in the middle of the DC hellhole!_" Abri's voice was abnormally scratchy and low—actually, it was very similar to Three Dog's particular tone. Mouse had a feeling, judging from their laughter and Three Dog's scowl, this was something he said often.

"_Your lord and master, glorious Galaxy News host Three Dog, is currently indisposed at the moment_," Sarah said, "_but he's graciously let us step in for him while he's interrogating a lost mouse._"

"_Speaking of—Dr James of Vault 101, your lost daughter is here in GNR studios. She's safe and unharmed—though Three Dog might be brainwashing her with his Good Fight._"

There was some clanking coming through the speakers, and Sentinel Lyons giggled, starting up another fit of laughter.

"_What in the hell? Abri, look at this!_" More shoving and the sound of somebody pushing something around. "_Three Dog has records he doesn't play. We have to listen to the same big band and blues shit over and over and over, and he's got this!_"

"_I like the big band and blues shit. I know every word to _Civilization_,_" Abri remarked distractedly. It sounded as though he and Sarah were shifting through something. "_Elvis Presley? Johnny Cash? BB King? Why doesn't he play any of this?_"

"_And why does he only have ancient records? Where's the newer stuff?_"

"_Um… hey, this is—_"

A new voice suddenly cut into the static fray. "_He's fucking done talking to her. You might want to stop dicking around with his shit._"

"_Oh. Well, thanks for listening! Here's some not new music, because neither of us knows how to work a record player! This was Abri Ryder—_"

"_And Sarah Lyons. Thanks for letting us kill Three Dog's radio show_."

It abruptly ended.

Seething, Three Dog turned on his guests. Sarah and Abri were grinning innocently. "Get out of my studio," he growled, pointing to the door.

The two hurriedly left, with Joanie trudging out on their heels. Mouse began to follow, but she stopped for a moment as Three Dog called, "I hope you find your dad."

She stared at the floor. "Thanks," she whispered, and left the studio.

—

Standing in GNR Plaza, Mouse waited patiently as Abri fiddled with the knobs of her Pip-Boy. A moment later, Three Dog's voice flowed smoothly out of the speakers, not at all full of static.

"Proximity," Abri mumbled, then fell silent. Sarah Lyons was leaning over his shoulder, staring interestedly at the radio waves sounding through her Pip-Boy.

"_This is Three Dog, back from the dead. So you all know how much I love and worship the Brotherhood of Steel—they keep the DC ruins safe, and they protect us and fight the Good Fight. But when one of them—when a _leader _breaks all the rules, it just makes me sick. Elder Lyons, ring your daughter in please. And Sarah and Abri? You're banned from my studio… for now._

"_Oh, and just to make it clear: Those records they mentioned? They don't work. Warped from radiation. Miss Lyons, you can live with what you got._"

Then Three Dog started talking about the state of the Wasteland, so Abri turned down the volume so it was merely a pleasant background sound.

He glanced back at Sarah. She was smirking. "I guess he's angry with us, huh?"

She laughed softly and shook her head. "I hope my father doesn't listen to GNR."

Mouse smiled somewhat at the two. Abri was so comfortable with everybody. She wondered how he did it—and if he knew Three Dog told her his story.

Joanie harrumphed loudly a few feet away. "Are we going to fucking go, or not?"

Sarah shaded her face and peered up into the sky. "You might want to. We took care of all the muties in the area, but you never know when more will show up. And Abri," she added, glancing back at him, "I know you like taking the river to the city, but use the subways, eh? That way you only have ghouls to contend with."

"You think I can't handle mirelurks, raiders, and mutants? Your lack of faith disturbs me, Sarah." He clutched his heart dramatically. "Got it, though. And the metro will be easier on Mouse's eyes." He looked at her and flashed her a charming smile. "We wouldn't want you blind by the time you found your father."

Sarah chuckled and smacked his arm. "Get out of here, Abri. And Mouse," she added, glancing towards her, "I hope you find your father okay. You seem like a good kid."

Mouse managed a little smile. "Th-Thank you."

After Abri finished his goodbyes with the rest of the Brotherhood soldiers, he gently took Mouse's arm and guided her out of GNR Plaza, with Joanie lurking behind them, silent as ever.

"I'm really glad we both wound up here, Mouse," Abri said softly. His eyes sparkled behind his heavy glasses. "I'll admit, I was actually pretty worried about you when you decided to stick around Megaton before going off on your own. I know how ruthless the Wasteland can be." His boots crunched over shattered glass and tiny rocks of cement as he carefully led the way out of the Plaza, towards the nearest metro station. His gloved hand slipped down to hers and their fingers entwined. Mouse felt her mouth twitch up; she felt safer being in contact with him, having him guide her over the treacherous terrain. Another pang stabbed at her heart; she should have accepted his offer before leaving Megaton.

They met no resistance on the hike through the decimated city. Joanie muttered something under her breath—she likely wanted a fight, especially since her anger seemed to be visibly building—but Mouse breathed a sigh of relief as they walked down the steps into the metro, and Abri whispered a quiet assurance, squeezing her hand for good luck before using his other hand to slowly remove a pistol from his hip. Mouse bit her lip, and they slipped into the darkness of the metro.


	6. Don't know why I left the homestead

Mouse shuffled closer to the warmth of the small, crackling fire. Abri had built it on the side of the tracks in the metro, and it cut through the darkness of the cold, dank tunnel. Cold wind blew through the metro, infiltrating every crack and hole. Mouse's damp jumpsuit clung to her body, and shivers rippled through her. The fire was nice, but it wasn't enough.

Something crunched behind her, and a heavy, yet soft, jacket was draped over her shoulders. She glanced back, startled, and saw Abri smiling down at her, the firelight glinting off the lenses of his glasses. He wound past her and sat down with a heavy sigh, leaning against the wall. The funny leather jacket he usually wore was gone—around her now, keeping her warm from body heat, having been on him only seconds before—and underneath he wore a simple, dirty, white t-shirt. Crossing his legs and removing his backpack, he leaned back against the wall.

Mouse watched him from beneath her lashes. He looked exhausted. Eyes shut, face tilted up, he simply sat there, breathing heavily as if he had just run a minor marathon.

He must have felt her eyes on him. Perking up, he looked over at her and smiled. "How are you doing?"

She looked down at the fire, shrugging the jacket over her ears. "O-Okay. Wh-Where's—?"

He shook his head, cutting her off. His shaggy black hair fell over his face, and he absently pushed it back. "I don't know. She wandered off a few minutes ago. Probably going ghoul hunting, which is helpful." He cocked his head to the side, observing her. "Can I ask you something, Mouse?"

Mouse pulled the coat tighter around her. It smelled like heat and sand and—man. Not altogether a bad smell, but like nothing she had ever been subject to in the vault. The only man she had ever been in close contact with was her father, and he was always immaculately clean. She lifted her eyes from the warm orange fire to see him remove his glasses and squint at her. "S-Sure."

Abri absently wiped his glasses on the hem of his shirt. "What was life like in the vault? I've been in one of the abandoned ones, but I've never seen one that's actually functioning."

Abandoned vaults? Mouse could vaguely remember from her school studies that there had been hundreds of other vaults throughout the United States of America, but she hadn't realized that there were some so close to 101. "I-It's…" She swallowed a heavy lump in her throat. Was he making her explain something on purpose, just to hear her stutter? No. Abri couldn't possibly be that cruel. "I-It's b-beautif-ful. I m-miss it. E-Everyth-thing is c-clean, n-not l-like out h-here." She gave Abri's filthy shirt another glance, and he laughed, shrugging.

"It's hard to stay clean out here. You're not Miss Perfectly Clean vault girl anymore yourself, you know."

Mouse smiled and glanced down at her jumpsuit. It was streaked with mud from the river and hiking through the metro, and her boots weren't the same colour they had been upon leaving the vault. She even felt dirty; her skin was dirty and burned, and her hair felt greasy to the touch. "I k-know."

"So that's it? It's just clean?" Abri cocked his head to the side. "There has to be more to it."

She sighed shakily and looked down at her hands. They were reddened from the sun, cradled in her lap. "I h-had one f-friend. Am-mata. Sh-She and m-me w-would g-get p-p-picked on _constantly _b-by these j-jerks wh-who c-call thems-selves th-the T-T-Tunnel Snak-kes. S-She w-was the Ov-verseer's d-daughter, and I w-was the d-doctor's d-daughter, so…" She shook her head, and short locks of fine blonde hair fell before her eyes, blocking some of the view of her pinked hands. "B-Butch w-was th-their leader. H-He t-tried to b-beat me up at m-my b-birthday once."

Abri grunted, surprised, but he had gotten her started. There was no stopping her. She could feel the rush of emotion from merely talking about the vault—she wanted to go back so desperately, even if she only saw Butch DeLoria for a single minute. It would be a remnant of home. Now all she had were memories and her Pip-Boy.

"M-More r-recently, b-before school, B-Butch w-was p-picking on A-Amata again," she stammered, squeezing her eyes shut as she remembered the scene. Just outside the schoolroom, Butch and his Tunnel Snakes had been shoving Amata into the wall, teasing her about being the Overseer's daughter and just another puppet of the system. Then Mouse had shown up.

"As s-soon as I s-saw h-him h-hurting her, I-I s-s-snapped. I t-told th-them to g-go away."

_Butch sneered and shoved Amata into Freddie Gomez and rounded on her. "Wh-Wh-What are y-you g-going t-t-to d-do about it?" he mocked, baring his teeth in a leer_.

"I-I j-jumped on him." Mouse smiled a little and opened her eyes to see Abri gawking at her, glasses forgotten in his lap. "I kn-knocked him ont-to the f-floor. And I j-just s-started h-hitting him."

_Hands grabbed at her shoulders, but she knocked them away, growling, as she aimed another wild punch at Butch's face. He screeched, and moved just in time, and Mouse squeaked as her hand slammed into the hard metal floor._

"_What the fuck are you doing, crazy bitch?" he demanded, and tried to buck her off. She held tight to the lapel of his black leather jacket and managed to stay on top of him._

"Th-The t-teacher f-finally showed up," she said, chuckling softly. It was the proudest moment of her life. "S-So d-did security g-guards. B-Butch w-was b-bleeding. H-He h-had to g-go s-see my d-dad. I had t-to g-go see th-the Overs-seer."

Abri blinked slowly, then finally perched his spectacles on his nose once more. "Wow. You're one crazy kid, Mouse. _You _beat up the local bully? I find it hard to believe."

She felt her face flush, but doubted it was visible beneath her burn. Holding up her hands, she leaned across the fire. Abri's eyes bugged.

"Nice battle scars," he remarked softly, gently taking her hands in his and holding them closer. Her knuckles were speckled with slight, whitish marks, scars from beating Butch until he bled. Abri's hazel eyes rose, and he smirked. "I guess you weren't lying then. I bet Butch and his cronies left you alone after that?"

She nodded, smiling shyly. "A-Amata too."

Abri's hands slipped from hers, and he leaned back against the grimy metro wall with a thud. "So why'd you leave the vault? It sounds like you had it good in there. Much better than out here, for sure."

Tucking her hands around herself, she shook her head. "N-Now th-_that's _n-none of your business, A-Abri R-Ryder."

He nodded. "In time, I suppose."

Mouse huddled deeper into the folds of the jacket. She figured Abri was one of the few in the Wasteland who bothered to bathe every once in a while. His jacket didn't reek like Joanie did. "Ab-bri," she began tentatively, feeling his eyes on her, "Th-Three D-Dog t-told me about y-you and J-Joanie…"

A few seconds of silence pounded on her brain, then he sighed softly and rummaged through his backpack beside him. Pulling out a scruffy pistol, he began idly taking it apart with the nimble fingers of a skilled mechanic. "Did he? He likes to share my history with people. He told your dad, too, and Sarah and her father when he visited once. If I was concerned at all that the Paradise Falls slavers were still after me, I'd have to beat him up to shut him up," he joked, and she glanced up to see that his face was emotionless, quite unlike his voice, as he fiddled with the gun. "I don't mind. I guess you'd be curious why I'd want to help you get here if I didn't know you. That usually explains it."

"It d-did."

He heard the apology in her voice. Setting down the gun, he shuffled around the fire and took her arm, half-dragging her to the wall beside him. She smiled lopsidedly and sat beside him, fixing the jacket around her shoulders. "Better," he decided, and pulled her close so she was pressed against him. It was so much more comforting being with someone she could trust. "Don't be upset by it, Mouse. I've moved on. I barely remember the day the raiders destroyed Girdershade, and it's easy to forget my life in slavery. My new life, the real life I have, started the day I met the guys at the Temple of the Union. They're lifesavers. I went back to Girdershade after I was free," he added after a moment of quiet. "New people have inhabited it. There's nothing left of my old life. And I don't mind. My new life is impossibly better."

Mouse bit her lip and curled her knees up to her chest and leaned against his side as he picked up the gun again. Her gut was squirming as she thought over what he said. "M-My f-father did s-something…" she mumbled, staring into the fire. It was a pleasant sight, especially since she didn't need to wear her sunglasses inside the metro.

Abri paused in his work.

"I-I d-don't know wh-what… b-but the Ov-vers-seer th-thought I w-was involved and…" Mouse blinked rapidly, holding back tears at the memory of fleeing her home with guards in hot pursuit. "I h-had to g-get out of th-the v-vault, or they'd k-k-kill me. I f-found M-Megaton after I l-left. N-Nobody was supposed t-to leave the v-vault… I h-have to f-find my d-dad."

"What made you change your mind to tell me what happened?"

Mouse glanced up at him. Abri was looking at her with knotted brows as he held the forgotten gun between his hands. "I kn-know about y-your p-past. It's on-nly f-fair if y-you know m-mine."

Abri chuckled and set the gun aside. "Thanks. You'd better get some sleep before we keep going. It's a long walk to Rivet City."

"How l-long?"

"Usually only a few hours, but add in the ghouls and mirelurks that sneak up on us, or raiders or Talon mercs, it takes a little longer. You'll be fine," he added, grinning as she paled considerably, "you have me and Joanie looking out for you. As much as I hate that cold-hearted cunt, I know she's capable of defending herself and you."

Mouse frowned at him. "C-Cold-hearted wh-what?"

Abri gave an awkward chuckle and looked away. "Ah, ha, sorry about that. I don't like swearing usually, but I get worked up when I talk about her. Three Dog knows that pretty well."

She nodded absently and curled up into a ball with his jacket around her, and fell asleep listening to him hum a cheery tune as he expertly fixed the guns he carried.

—

"_Isn't it great?" she asked, beaming as she waved her arms around the room. Everything looked the same as when she left: her bed tucked into the corner, with her pictures of her parents smiling together above her writing desk. Sterile, grey and clean. Just as she liked it._

_The fluorescent lights burning steadily above reflected off his shiny black hair. "It is," he said, impressed. His hands were tucked into the pockets of his vault trousers as he surveyed the room. He was clean, wearing vault-issued clothing that fit his form perfectly, and his glasses were sliding down his nose as he peered around him, jaw dropped in awe. She giggled; he looked like a fascinated child, except for the stubble on his olive cheeks._

"_I love it here." She moved over to the desk, where her baseball gear and BB gun sat in peace. "That's my mom and my dad, there," she said, gesturing to the photograph._

_He moved up behind her; she felt him bump her from behind as he looked over her head. "Your mother was beautiful. You look exactly like her."_

"_I have my dad's eyes, though."_

"_We have to find him."_

"_What are you talking about? He's in his office. You've met him already."_

"With any luck, he'll be in Rivet City."

Mouse's eyes fluttered open and she scowled at the light flickering above her. She was bundled up in a leather jacket, cradled in strong arms with her face pressed into someone's chest. "Mm-ngh?" she grumbled tiredly, trying—and failing—to adjust her position.

A face peered down at her. A smiling mouth surrounded in raven stubble, sparkling hazel eyes behind thick black glasses. "Oh, you woke up, sleepyhead."

"Woke up?" she gurgled, trying to see him without staring at the blinding light. "But I was awake… we were in my room in the vault…"

Abri laughed. She felt it rumble through his chest, and she realized with an embarrassing jolt that he was carrying her—she had fallen asleep leaning against him as they waited for Joanie to finish off a pack of feral ghouls while walking through the metro, and he had picked her up so they could keep going. And she had drooled on his shirt.

Her cheeks flushed with humiliation.

"I'm s-so s-sorry," she stammered, paralyzed in mortification.

"Don't be." Laughter rang in his voice; he was in an oddly good mood. "There's no reason to be embarrassed. It's perfectly understandable that you're exhausted. You've been through a lot lately." Someone said something up ahead, and he called back, "She woke up. Doesn't take away from the fact that we need to make good time to Rivet City, though." Abri looked back at her, smiling. "Can you walk now? I can still carry you if you want. You weigh nothing."

Mouse grimaced and shook her head. He gently set her down, and she immediately shuffled a few steps away, distancing herself from him. Oh, God, this was so embarrassing. The last time she could remember needing to be carried after falling asleep in public was when she was seven and her father had to take her home during one of the Overseer's boring lectures. Maybe that was why she never fully understood her Pip-Boy. She always fell asleep during his explanations.

Abri started walking again, and Mouse timidly followed. Joanie was farther ahead, brandishing one of her huge, terrifying weapons, stalking along the dripping corridors of the metro as she hunted for feral ghouls.

"Did you notice something, Mouse?" Abri asked conversationally after they had gone a way down the metro tunnel. She cocked her head, still trying to forget her humiliation. "You didn't stutter when you woke up. And Joanie told me that she startled you once, and you didn't stutter. Have you always done it?"

"N-No. M-My dad s-says I s-started wh-when I s-started school. C-C-Called it s-social anxiety."

Abri made a slight noise in his throat. "So it's possible to reverse it, then," he said, probably to himself. "Did your father ever try anything?"

She nodded.

"We'll work on it," Abri said with a wink, and took her hand to tow her after Joanie. "Do you stutter around everyone?"

This time, she shook her head.

"Let me guess: your father and your friend Amata."

"Y-Yeah."

"Because you're comfortable with them and trust them?"

Mouse nodded and gave him a sidelong look. "And th-they n-never t-teased me f-for it."

Abri smiled at her. "I'm not ever going to tease you for it, Mouse. I promise you that."

"I kn-know. And I-I t-trust y-you, Abri."

"Give it time." He smiled warmly and they continued on in silence until they reached Joanie's side. She was standing on the tracks of the train line, her combat shotgun resting on one shoulder as she waited for them. Once they were all together again, she grunted hoarsely and handed Mouse a pistol, thinner and smoother than her ten mill. Behind its long, slim barrel was a cylinder, and the wooden stock was worn and smooth from years of long use.

"Here," Joanie said gruffly, shoving the weapon into Mouse's hand. "It'll be better than that piece of shit ten mill you got. Ain't worth shooting for shit. This'll do better."

As Mouse gingerly accepted the gift, Abri gave Joanie a speculative stare. "Are you sure that's wise?" he asked, never taking his sharp gaze from the raider.

"Why the fuck shouldn't it be?"

"Mouse, how much practice have you had with firearms?" Abri asked. His tone was more comfortable and less ruffled than when he spoke to Joanie.

She shrugged. "M-My d-dad got m-me a BB g-gun when I w-was t-ten. I d-didn't use it m-much."

"Is that it?"

Nod.

Abri patted her shoulder. "Keep it close, Mouse, but don't forget about the ten mill you have. This might be too much for you yet." He started walking again, widely skirting past Joanie, who was glaring daggers into him the whole time.

He quickly moved out of earshot. Mouse gave Joanie a wavering smile and whispered, "Th-Thank y-you."

Joanie's mouth twitched into a semblance of a smile. Mouse guessed it was about as close as the woman would ever get without it being a sadistic leer. "I don't want you fucking dying on me, vault rat," she replied, and turned on her heel, soundlessly ghosting down the metro tunnel after Abri.

Comfortable as she felt within the dark, cool safety of the metro, she certainly didn't want to be left alone to fend for herself. Squeaking softly, she picked up the pace and jogged up to her companions. She stuck close behind Abri, and his hand automatically stretched out for hers. She gratefully took it, and with her new revolver clenched in her other hand, she followed her Wastelanders through the decrepit ruins of old DC.


	7. I'll stay on the job 'til the job's done

"Th-That i-isn't a c-city."

Abri smiled and lightly touched Mouse's back, urging her onward. As he had promised, it had taken less than a day to reach the south side of DC, and since they kept to the metro tunnels, they only had the odd feral ghoul or lost super mutant to deal with. As much as he detested Joanie, he was at least grateful that she was capable of felling any irradiated monster they came across. The odd thing was that she seemed more than willing to do it. He didn't know the ex-raider very well, beyond their brief and tense meetings in the past, but he doubted she had ever gone out of her way to help someone in need. Especially a vault rat.

Eyes narrowed, he cast her a short glance. She was walking ahead of him and Mouse, humming to herself and casually swinging her combat shotgun.

He wondered what it was about Mouse that made her change her mind.

Feeling a gaze on him, he glanced back to see Mouse watching him, her big blue eyes narrowed behind her dark-shaded glasses. "It is, don't worry," he promised. They were close enough to Rivet City for the guards to see them; if any unhappy creature decided to attack, they would have help. He didn't bother to keep his footsteps quiet on the broken glass and jagged gravel coating the cracked freeway. "It's one of the safest places you can possibly be out here, behind a vault and the Citadel."

Mouse nodded and brushed loose locks of dirty hair off her forehead. Abri bit back a smile; she was looking a fair bit redder than the day he first met her. Poor tender vault skin, burning in the Wasteland sun. "Wh-What ab-bout J-Joanie? W-Will th-they l-let her in?"

"Sure. I don't know why they shouldn't."

Mouse probably harboured some affection for Joanie. The bitch _had _saved her from death at the hands of other raiders, after all. Abri pressed his lips together and tried not to think of his failure that day. He had mentally kicked himself over and over after letting her slip from his grasp in Megaton. If only he had done a better job of convincing Mouse she needed help, she wouldn't have been in a mess with Joanie to begin with.

"Wh-What's i-it like?"

"A city, just like any other."

When Mouse remained silent, Abri glanced down at her and stifled a smile. She was staring at the ground as she walked, her brows furrowed together in a confused scowl.

"You've never seen a real city before, have you? Other than Megaton and the ruins of DC?"

She shook her head, wiping back her hair. Several loose strands kept falling over her face, wiping dirty streaks on her sunglasses and getting into her eyes. Abri smiled slightly and returned his gaze to the looming steel fortress of Rivet City ahead of them.

"J-Just in m-my sch-school textb-books."

"Beautiful in themselves," Abri said, lightly touching her back to encourage her forward over a large crack in the eroded pavement. "But I personally think vaults have something more. The ones I've seen… nothing really beats it."

Mouse smiled, slight colour rising on her cheeks. Ahead of them, Joanie shouted, "Are you guys coming or what? Let's get in there!"

Waving an arm, Abri teased, "After you," and followed her and Joanie up the steep steel ramps to the high entrance of the city. The guards stiffened upon seeing Joanie, weapons clanking as she moved with each step, but Abri nodded their way and sent them a pleasant smile. Their shoulders relaxed, and one of them grinned and called a greeting before stepping back and allowing them to pass unhindered. Mouse stayed close, just behind him, her hand just barely grazing his hip. In several ways, she reminded him of the child slaves he had met with the Temple of the Union; small and scared, they had clung to the shirts of their elders, so as not to stray and get lost.

Joanie marched up to the main door to the city and shoved it open. Abri and Mouse followed, and instantly they were enveloped in the cool darkness and musty odour that permeated the beached ship.

As they followed Joanie toward the lower decks of the ship, Abri leaned in closer to Mouse and murmured into her ear, "Rivet City was founded recently, only in twenty-two thirty-nine. It's an aircraft carrier from the war era, but it got stranded here after the water levels in the Anacostia and Potomac got too low to keep it afloat. Some scientists used the place to set up research, and it's just flourished since then."

She nodded; her hair brushed his chin, tickling. "Wh-What about m-my d-dad?"

Abri took her hand and led her down the narrow stairs. Joanie clomped ahead, loud and comfortable now that she was no longer in any immediate danger. "It looks like we're heading for the Muddy Rudder," he said, noticing the direction Joanie was taking them. "We can get some good food, then I'll get us some rooms at the Weatherly Hotel, and tomorrow we can look for your father. It shouldn't take too long to find him; he'll probably just be in the lab with Dr Li."

Mouse's fingers tightened around his. "I l-like it h-here," she whispered, too quietly for Joanie to overhear up ahead. "It f-feels… s-safe."

"It's perfectly safe. C'mon. You must be starving."

They finally reached the Muddy Rudder; Joanie led the way in, immediately detaching from their small group to slide up to the bar. Abri ignored her and towed Mouse to one of the neat white tables lining one end of the room. Once he had her deposited in a chair, he went up to the bar beside Joanie.

"Already drinking, huh?"

"Fuck yes. I earned it."

Abri's brows rose beneath his shaggy black fringe, but he didn't reply. Instead, he shot Belle Bonny, the bartender and owner, a charming smile. "Hey, Belle. How're things going?"

"Hiya, Abri. I was wondering when you were going to be here again." She smiled, somewhat tight-lipped, but it was a smile nonetheless. "Things are good here. What can I get you?"

"Anything without radiation in it that'll get a weak girl on her feet."

Belle nodded, and her eyes wandered over her shoulder. "Who's the girl in the jumpsuit?"

"Amanda." Abri smiled as Belle handed over two tall glasses of water. "She's new from Megaton. Wanted to come to Rivet City, so I offered to bring her out."

"Bit odd, I think."

"Why's that?"

Belle jerked her chin toward Mouse's table. "She's wearing a suit that says Vault One-oh-One on it. You don't think that's weird?"

"It's probably best not to ask questions about things like that. Thanks, Belle." He picked up the glasses, but lingered for a moment at the bar. "How long do you think the food will take?"

The owner shrugged and scratched absently at her arm. "Dunno. Maybe ten, twenty minutes? I can get you some decent stuff without radiation in it, but—"

A startled shriek suddenly cut her off, and his hand was on the hilt of his .45 pistol before he even finished turning around. The chug of a shotgun sounded loudly beside him, but when he and Joanie turned, guns out, they both saw that Mouse was in no real danger. She had bolted out of her seat, knocking over several others; her face was ashen white and her whole body trembled like a windblown leaf; but she only looked startled, rather than terrified. Standing across the table from her was a young man, likely around her age, with clear olive skin and a greased up black pompadour and swirl. At first, Abri wasn't surprised to see a young fellow approaching Mouse—despite her awkward shyness, she was quite cute—but when he did a double take, his jaw dropped when he spotted the light blue jumpsuit with yellow 101 the man wore.

"What in the fuck is going on?" Joanie demanded, and Abri, throat closed up with shock, could only nod his agreement.

Mouse's wide eyes flicked over to Joanie, then Abri, then back at the man, who was staring at her with an identical look of shock. "Are you a ghost?" she squealed.

Abri and Joanie gawked at each other, and the man jerked back. "You didn't stutter!" he shouted. "Jesus, Mouse, I'm real! It's me, Butch."

Cold fingers slid slowly down Abri's spine. "Butch?" he repeated breathlessly. "_You're _Butch? The bully?"

Butch's dark eyes turned over to him. "Uh… okay, we gotta catch up, Mouse. We gotta lot to talk about. I—I never thought I'd see you again after you left the vault…"

He reached out as if to touch her, then dropped his arm. Mouse stared at him, trembling, before managing to stammer, "I-Is it j-just you?"

He stiffly shook his head. "No… no. Charlotte's out too."

"A-Amata?"

"Sorry, Mouse."

She nodded shakily and glanced over to Abri. In an instant, he was at her side, his arm around her waist. She huddled close to him, shrinking into herself. Butch was staring at him. Abri cleared his throat and lowered his gun. "I'm Abraham Ryder," he said slowly.

"Butch DeLoria. I grew up with Mouse." Butch shifted on the balls of his feet, as if he wasn't sure whether he should offer his hand or not.

Abri kept one hand on Mouse's waist, and the other on his .45. Butch had no choice but to leave his hands at his sides. "We're going to the Weatherly Hotel. Meet us there in one hour. You're going to explain _everything_, Mr DeLoria."

"Yeah… yeah, of course. Do… do you want me to bring Charlotte too?"

Abri glanced at Mouse. He didn't know who Charlotte was, but judging by her grimace, she did. "Bring her," he decided for her. "Maybe she can help explain."

Butch's movements were jerky and abrupt, as if he didn't know quite how to behave. Mouse was similar. Perhaps it had to do with never before functioning outside a vault. Abri had never before seen people quite so off before.

Abri felt a presence behind him, and he glanced over his shoulder to see Joanie slinking up beside him and Mouse, glaring after Butch DeLoria as he quickly scuttled from the Muddy Rudder.

"Do we trust the little asswipe?" she snarled, still hefting her shotgun.

"Not as far as I could throw him," Abri replied softly. "But we'll do what we can for Mouse. If he tries to hurt her, he's finished."

Mouse suddenly stopped quivering, and he felt her and Joanie openly staring at him. He understood why—he was a little surprised himself at the vehemence that came through in his tone. Shaking his head, he corrected the chairs and sat Mouse down. They would at least get some good food into her before interrogating her childhood bully.

—

When they reached the Weatherly Hotel, Butch DeLoria and another young woman in a Vault 101 jumpsuit were loitering nervously by the half circle main desk. The girl looked a little less anxious than Butch, but she hadn't received the same welcome—yet.

She had dark hair, similar to his, but lighter and with a reddish tinge to it that was quite noticeable in the bluish florescent light of the hotel. Like him, she wore a Vault 101 jumpsuit with a black leather jacket overtop. She looked as though she had cared about her appearance once: as they neared, Abri saw that her dark hair had once been in immaculate finger waves, but being away from the vault had mussed them up. Makeup around her deep brown eyes had smudged partway down her cheeks.

The girl noticed them first. She looked over one leather-clad shoulder and her mouth twitched. "Butch."

He looked up and his eyes bugged. "Mouse! M-Mr Ryder. You're here. Good. Um, this is Charlotte Bayer. She's from the vault too."

Charlotte gave a slight smile. "Who's this?"

"Joanie Beck."

Abri cleared his throat and gestured to some nearby seats. Once they were all comfortable, he ordered each of them a drink from Mr Buckingham and leaned back in his chair. "So, Mr DeLoria, you're the local bully at Vault One-oh-One. What does that make Miss Bayer here?"

Charlotte shot him a gimlet stare. "I'm his girlfriend."

Butch gave a half-assed smile, and Mouse sighed heavily at Abri's side. He looked down at her and she slumped forward in her seat, resting her chin on her hand. "What is it?" he whispered, bending closer to her.

Those startling blue eyes turned up in his direction. "L-Later?"

"All right." Straightening, Abri fixed Butch and Charlotte with a hard stare. Butch seemed to shrink, and Charlotte blinked and looked away. "Why aren't you in the vault?"

Butch sighed heavily. "Mouse, right after you left, a lot of us realized that we could leave if we wanted, to come and go, y'know? And we could trade with outsiders and stuff. You and your dad leaving showed us that. So… Amata led it. We kinda protested the stuff the Overseer was saying… led to a bit of a civil war." Mouse squeaked as she stifled a laugh, and Charlotte grinned. Butch's cheeks flushed pink, and he rubbed them absently. "I remember some shit from Mr Brotch's class, okay? I wasn't _always _asleep. But some of us, we left, Mouse. Me and Charlotte were one of the first to go. Got a ride with some dudes with two-headed cows to come here safely. And here we are, eh? We only just got here pretty recently. A couple days ago. They took a super quick route, I guess."

Abri reached over and took Mouse's hand. She squeezed his, but otherwise remained unchanged. "O-Oh."

Butch rubbed his face and slumped forward on the table. "I dunno what exactly Amata's got planned… if you go back, Mouse… go with someone who can take care of themselves and you. Folks you're with look like the type." He cast Joanie a nervous glance, and Abri tried not to roll his eyes. Sure, _he _didn't look threatening, but Joanie could give a family of starved deathclaws a run for their money any day of the week. Terrifying thought.

He gave Mouse another look. Her hand was quivering in his, but he was so accustomed to her shaking that he paid it no mind. He figured it was just part of the social anxiety that plagued her. Otherwise, she seemed a little paler than usual—her awful sunburn was slowly fading into a tan that definitely made her look like a pre-war beach bum—and she was chewing on the corner of her lip like she was on the offensive and it was an Enclave soldier.

"Do you want to call it a day, Mouse? We can talk to them more in the morning."

She nodded without bothering to look up at him. "Y-Yeah. I-If y-you d-don't m-m-mind."

"You know I don't." Abri turned his attention back to Butch and Charlotte. "You two, meet us back here at one tomorrow afternoon, no sooner or later. If you aren't here, Joanie's going to find you, got it?"

Beside him, Joanie cackled, and Butch's face turned the sickly colour of old cream. Charlotte's stern façade cracked and the corner of her mouth twitched. As much as Abri detested Joanie's very existence, he fully knew she would be more than happy to take the offer of beating up a couple of smart-mouthed kids.

Once Abri had Mouse moved to her room for the rest of the evening, he dismissed Butch and Charlotte and stood awkwardly beside Joanie at their table as Mr Buckingham tidied up the remains of their drinks.

Joanie coughed brusquely and ran a hand through her hair. "You handled that bullshit good, Ryder."

He nodded. "Anything for Mouse's benefit and wellbeing, I suppose."

A sly smirk slowly twisted Joanie's mouth. "Yeah, sure. Anything for her. I can read you like a fuckin' book, Abraham Ryder. Don't you play anything. I'll catch you in a second."

He felt his fingers curl into fists at his sides. "Same goes out to you, Joan."

Joanie chuckled and wiggled her fingers at him before slinking away to her own room. He watched her until she vanished behind the closed door; as soon as it clicked shut behind her, he let out a long sigh and trudged tiredly toward his own rented room. His hand barely touched the knob when a soft voice called out behind him. Looking over his shoulder, Abri saw Mouse poking her head out of her door, her blue eyes big and watery as they locked on him.

"What is it?" His hand dropped to his side, and he moved across the hallway to reach her room.

Mouse smiled crookedly. "I-I c-can't f-figure out h-how t-to use th-the w-water."

Abri chuckled under his breath and entered her room. She scuttled toward the partitioned latrine in the corner, and Abri slowed, startled to see that she was bundled up in little more than a scruffy old towel. Her hair was down, for the first time that he had seen, and fell in messy, scraggly blonde locks partway down her back. With her shoulders bare, he could see the extent of her sunburn, and tried not to look too surprised at seeing it. Her shoulders and back were creamy white, but her neck and other exposed parts were reddish brown, scorched to high hell from the nuclear sun.

Abri moved to the pitiful bathroom area and gave the bath-shower setup a quick survey. From what he could tell, the pipes and taps were just a little rusted, and hard to budge. No wonder she had a difficult time with it. He had almost begun to assume she just didn't know how to work them—but she was from a vault, not brain dead. Judging by how neat and tidy she had been the first time he met her, vaults had showers—and he had explored enough to know that their technology was infinitely better than any they had functioning in the Wasteland.

With a little tinkering in his tool belt, Abri managed to get the taps working. Somewhat murky water sputtered and sprayed through the showerhead, and he stepped back, waving a hand.

"There you go."

"Th-Thanks." Mouse shuffled on the balls of her feet, glancing between the running shower and her guest. "W-Will y-you c-come back l-later? I w-want t-to t-talk."

Abri smiled warmly. "Anything you need, Mouse."

He returned to his room, but it felt like no time had passed before a knock came at his door. He looked up from the broken laser pistol in his hands—he had promised to fix it to working condition ages ago so Moira could sell it—and called a brief entry. Mouse slipped in a moment later, and his breath hitched in his throat. She was wearing a plain white t-shirt, the same one she wore beneath her 101 jumpsuit, he noted, that was slightly grimy from travel. The light blue jumpsuit was gone; in its place, she wore simple brown trousers, the type he had seen Joanie and other raiders wear on occasion. Her feet were bare, he hair left long and wavy, dampening the back of her shirt.

Abri managed a neutral smile. "You're starting to look like a Wastelander. Albeit a really clean Wastelander."

Mouse smiled timidly. "Th-Thanks. One d-day." She shuffled into the room and sat down on the bunk beside him. After waking up from a nap, drooling on his shirt, she had recovered from her embarrassment enough to feel more comfortable around him. She had always seemed to trust him, but the walk to Rivet City had shown him that her social anxiety could be cured. She didn't shy away from his touch or his proximity.

"Can I ask you something, Mouse?"

She nodded, tucking her damp hair behind her ears.

"You looked pretty uncomfortable when we met Charlotte."

Mouse shook her head and her big blue eyes turned up toward him. "N-No."

"No?"

"N-Not wh-when we m-met her. Wh-When sh-she t-told you sh-she was h-his g-g-girlfriend."

Abri's eyebrows rose, but he realized she was correct. Rubbing the bristly stubble on his cheeks, he nodded and brought his legs up on the bunk, curling them beneath him. "So what was that about then? It seemed a little strange."

Mouse hugged her knees to her chest. "B-Butch st-started being m-mean when I w-was s-six and h-he was s-seven. W-We kind of g-got al-long bef-fore then. B-But h-he only started b-being _r-r-really _mean wh-when I w-was f-fifteen. Th-That's when h-he started d-dating her." She let out a soft sigh and shrugged. Blossoms of rose bloomed on her cheeks. "I k-kind of l-liked h-him before th-then."

Surprise caught hold of him before he even thought to censor himself. Abri's jaw dropped and his brows shot into his hairline. "You like him? But he's such a little prick!"

Mouse giggled and covered her mouth. "N-Not s-so m-much anymore, Abri. I r-really d-don't l-like her."

Abri smiled and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close so she had no choice but to lean into him. "I'll make sure big bad Charlotte doesn't get in the way of my girl's heart," he teased, and Mouse tried to wriggle away. He laughed and kept a firm grip, keeping her stuck close to him. "If you want to be Mouse DeLoria, I'll make sure it happens."

She squeaked and immediately turned scarlet. "No way! I'd r-rather be M-Mouse R-Ryder than th-that!" Abri laughed outright, and she buried her face in her hands. "I'm s-so sorry!"

"Don't be!" Abri grinned and pulled her hands from her face. "I know what you meant. It's all right. No offence taken on my part. Know what I just realized?" he asked, holding her hands in front of her so she couldn't hide away in her obvious embarrassment. "I don't even know your last name."

"F-Fitzpatrick."

"Mouse Fitzpatrick. Amanda Fitzpatrick. Hm. Suits you fine."

"Th-Thanks?"

"So to look for your dad," he said, changing the subject—she seemed a little uncomfortable after her slip-up, and he wanted to keep her talking, to urge the stutter away, "are we looking for Dr James, James, Vault Doc, Dr Fitzpatrick…?"

"D-Dr J-James… or D-Dr F-Fitz." She pulled one hand from his grip and rubbed her face. Her hair was beginning to dry, and down from the customary messy bun Abri was used to seeing, it was surprisingly curly at the tips. "Wh-What are w-we g-going to d-do?"

"About your father?" Abri sighed and settled back more comfortably on the bunk. The Weatherly Hotel was nice—likely the nicest place to live in the Capital Wasteland, perhaps Tenpenny Tower excluded—but it was still just an aircraft carrier. He released her hands and picked up the laser pistol again. Moira had found it in rough condition, partially melted to slag. He had fixed it enough to hold properly, but it still needed a lot of work. "We'll take the morning easy. Sleep in, relax. Butch and Charlotte are meeting us here at one, and once we're finished with them, finding out what really happened in the vault, we can go to the science lab and see if he's there."

Mouse bit her lip and nodded. Worry twisted in his gut, and Abri leaned toward her and crooked a finger beneath her chin, tilting it up so she faced him. She stopped chewing and stared at him, seeming so small and pitiful.

Abri felt the corner of his mouth curl up. "Stop fretting, okay? I know you want to see your dad as soon as possible, and I understand that. But let's not rush anything. He still expects you to be in the vault. Nothing I said at GNR could change his mind of that. He wanted you to be safe and sound at home. Give him a little while to feel like he did the right thing. We don't even know why he left."

Mouse nodded and he dropped his hand. "I kn-know. I m-miss him."

"I know you do. You must be exhausted. The past couple of days have been pretty rough for you. You should really get some sleep." Abri smiled and brushed flyaway locks of blonde hair off her forehead. "Poor vault rat's been doing a lot she's not used to."

She hesitated a moment, her eyes staring down at her hands. "A-Abri… d-do y-you m-mind if I st-stay h-here tonight?"

Abri gazed at her for several moments. She was too innocent for the Wasteland and the horrors that came with it. Her life, barring the childhood bully and heartache, was idyllic to the point of being painful to hear about, especially when Abri compared it to his own. It wasn't something he liked to do—he was happy with his new life, after all, and he owed the Temple of the Union everything—but it certainly put things in perspective for him. Mouse was nineteen, but she seemed so much younger from innocence and naivety alone. She had been through enough in her sterile vault life to be emotionally traumatized—so far as he knew, she had no mother, she had been bullied to the point of becoming a social exile, and her father vanished, leaving her in a hostile home.

At nineteen, regardless of where she had been raised, she was a grown woman. It was silly for her to want to be with someone for the night, as if afraid or nervous at what might happen. But she was timid. Everything spooked her. She was in a new city, living a vastly difference way of life she was used to. She felt unsafe in her own skin. She was, after all, a mouse.

"Of course I don't. If it makes you more comfortable to stay here, by all means stay. I'm just going to tell Joanie the plan for tomorrow. Make yourself at home." He stood and stretched leisurely, then adjusted his glasses on his nose and padded from the room. He didn't actually want to speak with Joanie—because, really, who did?—but it was necessary for her to know what was going on, so she didn't end up somehow going on a killing spree or those other nonsensical things that raiders do.

It wasn't necessarily that Mouse was too naïve to get herself hurt, even in the relative safety of Rivet City. After surviving years of captivity, the torture of slavery, and knowing the sweet taste of freedom from the Temple of the Union, Abri knew it was only right for him to help others. It was what he felt born to do. Fixing broken machinery and help others who needed it: he felt they were two things that defined him. So even if Mouse wasn't Mouse; if she had been a brute of a Hellfire soldier or a tortured Great Khan; if she had been worldly and wise, and had known the Capital Wasteland like the back of her hand: he still would have helped her if she had needed it. The fact that she was so sweet and ignorant of the true dangers of the world, helpless in the nuclear desert, made it only that much easier for him to do what he enjoyed most.

Joanie was buzzed on a half-empty flask of whisky, expertly cleaning her sniper rifle with a filthy rag, when Abri found her in her room. She grunted when he informed her of the following day's plans, took another swig from her flask, and continued industriously scrubbing her weapon.

By the time Abri returned to his room a few minutes later, Mouse was already curled up, hands tucked angelically beneath her cheek, fast asleep.


	8. Times have changed

Mouse slowly rose to the watery surface of unconscious. Her dream faded—an image she was already forgetting, a woman with fair blonde hair and smiling green eyes, the Alpha and Omega—and the first conscious thought she had was that something large and warm behind her smelled softly of salt and sweat and was moving gently to the tune of her own heartbeat. She felt oddly at peace. The dreams that she was already forgetting had been clenched with fear and unease, but she knew she was safe.

Then the thing behind her snorted loudly and she jerked all the way awake. Opening her eyes, she found her face pressed into an arm that was not hers—it was far too long, thick, dark, and covered in a fine dusting of black hair. The other arm that matched it was tossed lazily over her waist, beneath a thick, coarse blanket of an awkward, stained navy blue. A raspy face was leaning on her shoulder, tangled in her hair. She blinked, startled, and remembered that she had fallen asleep in Abri's room in the Weatherly Hotel the night before. They were in Rivet City. They were going to find her father.

Mouse tried to shift as a cramp in her curled knees made itself known, but Abri was apparently stuck to her back, and dead asleep if his snoring was any judge.

Well. She could survive. She didn't want to bother him. Adjusting her head so her cheek was more comfortable on his arm, she sighed and shut her eyes, ready to fall back asleep.

Just when the dark oblivion of slumber was taking over, a bone-rattling clang jolted her awake, as well as the man curled up behind her.

"Ryder! Fix this goddamn motherfucking headache before I fucking blow this boat to the seven circles of hell and back!"

Abri groaned and the arm moved off Mouse's waist. "Jesus Christ…" he moaned, his voice crackling from such a rude awakening. "It's your own goddamn fault you drank so much!"

Mouse squeezed her eyes shut and buried her face in her hands. She was paired with two people on completely opposite sides of the spectrum of sanity and humanity.

"Fix it! Aren't you supposed to be fucking _good _at this shit?"

"Machines, Joan! Guns and metal parts! Are you a robot? No matter how much you try to act like it, you aren't!"

The frustration mounted quite abruptly and Mouse sat up, ruffled and glowering. Joanie was half-hanging into the room, wearing torn shorts and a long shirt that was so filthy it was impossible to tell what colour it had been eventually. Even though she was across the room from the bed, Mouse could smell the reek of alcohol and vomit permeating her person. Abri was leaning against the wall, his hair jutting in ridiculous black tufts from sleep. He was glaring nearsightedly at Joanie; his glasses were on the floor next to the bunk.

"Sh-Sh-Shut _up!_" she shrieked, slapping her fists to her knees. The weight of tension and testosterone in the air seemed to lessen intensity as the two stopped leering at each other and turned their sights on Mouse. "G-G-Get al-long! I th-thought I w-was sup-posed t-to relax t-tod-day!"

Joanie gawped at her as if struggling to comprehend just who was speaking, and Abri sighed and smiled apologetically. "Sorry, Mouse. You're right. Talk to Mr Buckingham, Joan. I can't do anything for you." With that, he flopped back on the bed, jostling it under his weight. Mouse gasped and nearly plummeted into him at the sudden disruption of balance on the mattress. Mouse managed to catch herself before falling. She spat hair out of her mouth and glared at Joanie until she stumbled away, grumbling under her breath as she went.

Mouse continued to glare at the wall, furious that they would be at each other's throats first thing in the morning even though both claimed to be there for her wellbeing, when there was a gentle tug on her hair. She looked down to see Abri peering sleepily up at her, his mouth pulled into a crooked smile. The stubble was thick on his face, and dark bags lined his bleary hazel eyes. The single night they had spent in the metro, he had awoken before her; she had no idea mornings affected him in such a way.

"Sorry about that, Mouse. Not the nicest way to greet the day, huh?" He nestled more comfortably on the bed and stifled a yawn with his fist. "Good morning, by the way."

"G-G-Good m-morning." She slipped back beneath the blanket and propped up the pillow beneath her head. Abri was blinking tiredly beside her, looking ready to pass out if he closed his eyes for too long. "A-Are you ok-kay?"

"Hm? Mm, yeah." He buried his face in the pillow and pulled up the blanket over his shoulders. "I only need coffee. Then I'll be fit as a fiddle and ready to go."

"F-Fit as a f-fiddle?"

"My cousin Sam used to say it all the time. But then, he might've stopped. I haven't seen him since he visited from New Reno a year ago, and I'm pretty sure he wasn't saying it then."

"Wh-Why n-not?" Mouse didn't even bother to ask what New Reno was. She was already embarrassed at how stupid she must seem to Abri, not knowing simple things about the Wasteland.

He rolled over to better see her. "It was the first time I'd seen him since we were kids and he and his family moved out east from Girdershade. Apparently on the way here, he'd, ah, been attacked by a deathclaw. Not quite as fit as a fiddle with the scars he's sporting now." Apparently he saw her frown of confusion; Abri brought up his arms, hooked his fingers into claws, and made a ridiculous snarling face, curling his lip and baring his teeth. "Giant lizard monsters. Little like dinosaurs, or dragons without the wings."

"O-Oh." Mr Brotch in the vault schoolroom had taught them a bit about dinosaurs and how they were apparently related to birds. Mouse wasn't sure she should believe him, no matter what her father said about his intelligence and sanity. That theory was just a little too farfetched. "Th-They s-sound aw-awful."

"They are. He used to be a nice looking guy. Runs in the family." Abri grinned boyishly and Mouse giggled. "Kind of scary looking now though. How do you want to spend your morning?"

Mouse ran her hands through her hair. It was tangled and mussed from sleep, making the natural waves and curls impossible. She sometimes hated having hair. It would be so easy to be like Joanie and cut it all off. Or shave it. Whichever Joanie did. "I d-don't kn-know." What she really wanted to do was find her father, but Abri's logic had been, well, logical, and she didn't want to seem ungrateful for his help since Megaton and the ruins of DC.

She reluctantly climbed from the bed and stretched leisurely. All her joints hurt; Jesus Christ, Abri was a bed hog. The only other person she had shared a bed with before had been her father when she was afraid at night and Amata during sleepovers, and neither of them had ever taken up as much room as he had.

She felt Abri's eyes on her as she combed her hair back with her fingers and tied it into its regular messy bun with an elastic band from around her wrist. Once it was back, away from her face, she immediately felt better. "G-Get c-coffee. I w-want to exp-plore R-Rivet C-City," she said, smiling lopsidedly.

Abri watched her for a moment, then grinned and slipped out of the sheets. "All right. You're going to love it."

—

Mouse was in such a good mood after spending all morning with Abri, wandering aimlessly through the aircraft carrier of Rivet City, that she wasn't even upset upon seeing Butch and Charlotte in the foyer of the Weatherly Hotel at quarter past one in the afternoon. Butch was twiddling his thumbs together at a table, chewing on the corner of his lip, and Charlotte was scowling at the wall. They glanced up as Mouse and Abri walked in, both bearing stupid, giddy grins, and Charlotte's scowl darkened.

"You're late," she pointed out.

Mouse giggled softly as Abri grabbed her arm and stole a glance at her Pip-Boy. "Apparently. But we were the ones who organized the appointment, and we're all here, which is the main point. So relax, Miss Bayer. Mouse?" He pulled out a seat at the table and she gratefully slipped into it. One she was settled, Abri sat beside her, and the questioning began.

By using Butch and Charlotte—with Joanie watching in silence from a far corner of the room—they managed to piece enough together to understand just what occurred at the vault to make them leave. James and Mouse's disappearances from the safety of the vault—the door that was never supposed to open—had caused friction between the inhabitants to the point where it came to blows.

The joy of exploring the city with Abri vanished in an instant when the story finished. Mouse failed at holding back her tears; they were slipping freely down her cheeks by the time Butch finished explaining what happened in Vault 101 between Amata and the Overseer's sides. Abri gently rubbed her back, and she sniffled, staring at the table to keep from humiliating herself further in front of her childhood bullies.

"Are you going to be all right?"

"Mm-hm." Mouse rubbed her eyes and straightened to see Charlotte leaning back in her chair, twirling her sleek finger waves, with Butch leaning on the table beside her, his lip quivering. Mouse stared at him for a moment, unsure as to what she was seeing. Was Butch DeLoria showing real emotion? Something was wrong.

"I'll be right back." Charlotte stood and scooted her chair back beneath the table, and vanished into one of the nearby hallways.

Butch's eyes followed her for a moment, then they returned to Mouse. "Local junkie was saying things recently," he said softly, leaning closer across the table. "Charlotte told me not to tell after we saw you last night. Rumour has it Dr Li in the science lab partnered up with some new guy called James."

Mouse froze. For a long moment, time seemed to stop entirely. The world was bleary as she gawped at Butch; everything had a blurred edge to it, as if she was staring at him through water.

Then everything sped up and her lungs seemed to burst as a gasp flowed through her. She was vaguely aware of Butch saying something—his lips were moving, but she heard nothing—and something touched her back, and next thing she knew she was standing, her chair knocked to the floor, with her hands clapped over her mouth.

"Abri, my dad's in the science lab!"

Butch's jaw dropped, and Abri stood abruptly and pulled her into his chest. She was instantly enveloped in the warm smell of dust, soap and man. She blinked, seeing nothing but darkness, as voices floated around her.

"Did that just happen?"

"She doesn't do it if she's surprised."

"So just keep her surprised, eh?"

Mouse pushed away from Abri and nearly stumbled back over her chair. The men were staring at her. Mouse looked around; Charlotte was still gone, and Joanie was no long in her chair. She had probably followed Charlotte out of the hotel.

"W-We have to go," she whispered, reaching forward and burying her fingers in the front of his shirt. "He's h-here, Abri…"

He nodded; several rogue locks of hair fell over his thick-rimmed glasses. "Yeah. We will. We'll see him right now, okay, Mouse?" He cupped her hand in his. "Mr DeLoria… Butch… thank you for all your help."

"Yeah, no problem, Mr Ryder. Keep me updated, eh? Mouse… I'm sorry. For everything."

She looked up from her hand, wrapped in Abri's, to see Butch stand and circle the table. Abri released her, and she reluctantly loosened her grip on his shirt to turn and face the man who abused her as a child, who she adored despite. Standing so close to him, she could see that Butch had finally grown up. There was something in his eyes that had matured. He had seen enough of the hardships of the Wasteland after the problems in the vault, and he had finally grown from a boy to a man. A wave of relief washed over her, and tight knots in her shoulders relaxed. She had nothing to fear from him. It was easy to see that Charlotte, despite being two years older than Mouse, was still a bitter and angry young girl, but Butch was something different.

Butch smiled awkwardly. "Really, I am. I was a real jerk all these years. It wasn't fair."

Mouse nodded, reaching one hand behind her. Abri took it and gave it a comforting squeeze. "Th-Thanks, B-Butch. It m-means a l-lot."

The tension in his smile melted away. "Really? Oh, thank God." He visibly relaxed, and ran a hand through his hair, mussing the perfect coiffure. "I saw you when you were running from the vault, y'know. You ran past my place. I never seen someone so scared in my life. I think that's when I realized I needed to change, eh? Gotta grow up one day."

"Th-Thanks."

His eyes flicked away from her for a moment; there was a soft grunt behind her, and Butch returned his gaze to hers. Before she could turn to see what Abri had done, Butch wrapped her in a quick but oddly comforting hug. For an instant, Mouse smelled home—the sterility of the vault, mixed with the warm sandy scent of the Wasteland—and then Butch backed away and bade them a swift farewell.

Mouse barely heard as Abri called goodbye to Butch and told her that Joanie was back after having followed Charlotte into the hall outside the Weatherly. The ex-raider was going to stay at the hotel, according to him—had he left to speak with her? Mouse hadn't noticed—so if she was ready, they could head down to the labs to see her father.

A shudder rippled down her spine, making every bone ache and every cell gasp. She was finally going to see her father. And after hearing of the destruction that corrupted the vault after his departure, Mouse was ready for more answers.

Abri cleared his throat near her, startling her out of her empty daydream. He was standing at the entrance of the hotel, his hands stuffed boyishly into the pockets of his trousers. Patiently waiting for her to stop acting like a dumbass and start paying attention to the world outside her head.

"Are you ready to go?"

After the eventful morning and past half-hour—Butch DeLoria, Tunnel Snake, had hugged her. That made her heart skip a beat, and she didn't know if it was good or bad—she wanted nothing more than to curl up somewhere comfortable and wake up from this weird dream.

Except she wanted to see her father again. So yes, she was ready to go.

Mouse nodded and shuffled over to his side. Though he was outwardly calm, she could see that Abri was expecting the worst—though what could that be? His large revolver was slung lazily in a holster on his hip, and his eyes were wary and alert. She wasn't sure what could possibly go wrong, but she trusted that he would keep her safe if something did happen.

Then they were leaving the Weatherly Hotel, walking down the cold steel halls of Rivet City. Security guards nodded and smiled in greeting as they passed, which were returned by Abri in the same cheery fashion that he gave everything. Mouse was too petrified by recent events—and the fact that she was going to see her father again—to do anything but walk alongside Abri and stare dead ahead.

She almost wished it took hours to get to the science lab. At least then it might not be so terrifyingly real.

Her palms were sweaty when they reached the heavy steel door that was labelled 'Science Lab'. She watched in trembling anxiety as Abri turned the centre wheel and the metal slab swung open. Inside, she could hear the hum of scientific instruments, the whirr of computers, the low mumble of human voices all discussing something that was probably important.

And among them, the gentle lilt of her dear father.

Her heart seemed to freeze in her chest. As soon as Abri let her past, into the lab, she rushed forward and stared down into the laboratory proper. There, beside a neat Asian woman, dressed in a dusty vault suit with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows, was her father. He was holding a clipboard with a messy scrawl across the pages, and glancing between it, the Asian doctor, and a table laden with bubbling chemical cocktails. His face was lined with exhaustion, and his usually impeccable grey waves were tousled and toyed with. The sight of him made Mouse's face light up, and her mouth curl into a smile. It was like being home, with the hum of technology, the sterile steel, and the sight of her father, so deep into his beloved work that he looked the part of a frazzled scientist.

"Dad," she whispered, feeling tears sting her eyes. Almost as if he had heard her, his weary blue eyes moved away from the beakers of colourful liquid, starting to go back to his fellow doctor, when they caught on the walkway where Mouse and Abri stood.

She saw his mouth move, but had no idea if he was speaking. Then her face lit into a grin and she rushed down the stairs, clanging loudly on the metal, and was instantly enveloped in her father's warm embrace.

The soft cotton of his vault jumpsuit instantly soaked up the warmth of her tears as she pressed her face into his chest. His arms squeezed her tight, to the point where she felt like it was impossible to breathe, but she didn't care. She had her father. She had never been away from him for more than a few hours, and having him abandon the vault—abandon _her_—leaving her desperate and alone…

"Don't ever leave me again," she whispered into his shirt.

His hands on her shoulders, gently pulling her off him, made her look up at his face. Tears streaked his stubbly cheeks, catching in the thicker hairs around his chin. But despite the grin on her own face, he was frowning, holding her arms' length away.

"Dad?"

"Amanda… Mouse… is this really you?" James clamped his lip between his teeth as his eyes slowly scanned her face. "Why… you…" He glanced over his shoulder, and Mouse turned back to see Abri approaching, his hands shoved in the pockets of his dirty trousers. "Abri… you… she…"

Abri's mouth twisted into a lopsided, humourless smile. "I wasn't lying to you, James. She left the vault. She was in Megaton."

"How did you know to find me?" James looked between Mouse and Abri, and finally settled on Abri for answers. Mouse buried her face into his chest once more, relishing the comfort of his proximity. It was a day of perfection. She explored a new city she felt one hundred percent safe in; she renewed an ancient friendship with Butch DeLoria and put their uncomfortable past behind them; she saw her father again. Nothing could ruin this moment. She would remember this day for as long as she lived.

"You mentioned going to Rivet City when we met at GNR Plaza." Mouse felt Abri move up behind her, and his hand settled on her back. She was protected on both sides by the two men she trusted most in all the world. "I met her in Megaton earlier. I offered to bring her to see Three Dog, but she refused, and ended up travelling with a raider who offered the same deal."

Her father shot her a wary glance. "A raider?"

"She's nice, Dad," Mouse whispered, smiling timidly. "She kept me safe."

"She did," Abri agreed, but his voice was suddenly stiff. "The three of us met up in DC, with Three Dog. We came here right after."

Mouse peered up at her father. "Butch left the vault, Dad. The Overseer went crazy, according to him."

"Why?"

She gawked at the confusion etching his face. Her own brand of puzzlement, mixed with anger, suddenly filled her. "B-Because you left!" she cried.

Her voice echoed off the steel walls of the lab. The murmurs of the scientists fell silent, and she felt all eyes on her as she stared at her father.

"What are you talking about, Mouse?"

She blinked away tears, but didn't break eye contact with him. "Y-You l-left. Th-They thought I-I was s-somehow involved with wh-what you did… they made me leave, Dad! Officer Gomez sh-shot at me!"

James stared at her, eyes wide and watery.

"A-And I don't even know why you left!" She pushed away from him, shrivelling from his touch in her anger. She backed into Abri's comforting touch, and he gently rested his hands on her shoulders. "Everyone in the v-vault hates me now, except Butch! Because of you!"

Everything was silent.

Trembling, Mouse spun around and pressed into Abri's chest. The warmth of his arms wrapped around her, pulling her in close. "Maybe we should come back later, James," she heard him murmur, and she felt the comforting rumble of his words through his chest. "She's a little overwhelmed."

"Yes… yes, I think so. Come back tomorrow."

"That might be too soon."

"I'm leaving the day after."

"Fine. We'll come back tomorrow."

Abri started to turn her away, to leave the horrible, sterile space of the science laboratory, but James' voice made him pause. "Thank you for taking care of her, Abri. And I am so sorry, Mouse."

In silence, the two of them left.


End file.
